Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Unfortunately, the law views pets as being just personal property. If the vet had negligently killed your beloved pet, you would only be entitled to get how much it would cost to buy a replace pet. It is less serious that the ashes were mishandled, so you would receive very little from a lawsuit. Perhaps if they still have the ashes you could get a portion because some of your pets ashes will be in the mixture.

You can file a complaint for negligence in small claims court. Under the facts that you have presented it would seem unlikely that you would be able to show damages in excess of the $7,500 small claims limit.

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