The 1934 Cat Trial

I remember a popular episode of The Andy Griffith Show that was called “The Case of the Punch in the Nose”. It involved a 19-year-old court case between Floyd and Charles Foley and a shave that wasn’t paid for. Because of the dispute, Charles punched Floyd in the nose. Barney found the lawsuit misfiled in the filing cabinet and wondered what the outcome of the case had been. Andy warned him not to stir up a hornets’ nest, but naturally he does, and all the parties in the case come to blows in a naturally funny way. Now, I hope that Aunt Jean and I aren’t stirring up a hornets’ nest, but Aunt Jean’s been telling me about an eighty-three-year-old case in Prestonsburg that was lovingly referred to as “The Cat Trial”. I went to PCC, because it will always be PCC to me, and looked up the details of the case and it’s purrfect!

Now a lot of us live in neighborhoods and suddenly out of the blue a cat will appear. Naturally, we never want any living thing to go hungry, so we feed it and then we get attached to the cat, maybe give it a name. But what if another neighbor also starts to feed the cat and names it? Most of the time situations like this heat up and then cool down and the cat peacefully lives in the neighborhood grabbing a meal or 3 at different houses. Likely this would have been the situation in 1934 if cooler heads had prevailed, but alas it wasn’t like that. Here are the facts of the ‘cat’astrophe.

In 1934 a dear woman by the name of Beatrice Rogers, who lived in West Prestonsburg, brought suit against a neighbor, another dear woman, Anna Hale. Mrs. Rogers claimed that she was the rightful owner of “Exhibit A”, a female yellow and white cat who she haphazardly named “Tom”. She claimed that Mrs. Hale had “swiped” the cat. The cat was also known at the Hale house and when in residence there then “Exhibit A”, was named “Yaller”. The court case drew a large crowd to the courthouse, about 500, and they watched as Tom or Yaller made her appearance in court. It is reported that she did everything a cat is supposed to do, she meowed, she purred and she spit. I also imagined she shed all over the courtroom and that the judge’s black robes were a sight to be seen. Many neighbors of West Prestonsburg were called to testify to determine just when and where the cat came from. One neighbor claimed he had brought the mommy cat home from Middlecreek with 3 kittens and this was one of the kittens. The plaintiff’s mother, Nola Miller, testified that the cat had been given to her daughter by another neighbor and that it always stayed in the house. Then one day “Tom and the dog ‘fit’ and the cat ran over to the Hale’s back porch and Anna grabbed it up and took it into her house” Beatrice Rogers testified that before Mrs. Hale “nabbed” the cat; “I kept the cat 90 days on each of which I fed Tom a quart of milk, sweet milk fresh from the cow!” Mrs. Hale’s young son, Billie, watched the testimony with keen interest, he wanted his cat Yaller back!

Closing arguments were made as both attorneys in the case made fervent and passionate pleas. Hillard H. Smith argued voraciously for the defendant and County Attorney, J.P. Tackett argued in a forceful and eloquent manner for the plaintiff. County Judge W.L Stumbo presided over the proceedings and many times had to ask people to hold their guffaws and laughter down. Even the Judge and other court officials struggled to keep straight faces during this most unusual case - The Cat Trial of 1934.

After a short deliberation the jury handed down the following verdict. “ “We, the jury, do agree and find the cat to be stray property, therefore adjudged that it shall be turned over to the County Judge, provided that said County Judge or Commonwealth will pay to Nola Miller, one half of the food bill of $5.63 and if they or either of them fail to pay said bill, the cat is to go to Billie Hale” When the court and Commonweath refused to pay the feed bill, the court ordered that the cat be adjudged the property of Billie Hale and Yaller was returned to the young lad. The paper reported, “Billie, her little son, got the cat and his happiness counteracted all bitterness growing out of the case”. Upon the reading of the verdict, Mrs. Hale fainted and amid screams of shocked women, the cries of the young son and the murmur of hundreds of witnesses. Judge Stumbo ran from the bench and rendered aid to the fainted woman. You see Judge Stumbo was also a physician and it was reported that he successfully revived her with difficulty. As a postscript, the jurors in the case asked that their names be published into the record of this unusual case as they were quite proud to be part of The Cat Trial.

And so Yaller went home with young Billie where I imagine he lived a long milk-filled life. My Aunt Jean told me about the case, she remembers it well as other may remember it too. I researched and found on microfilm the original newspaper stories and have attempted to tell the tale of the cat, or the cat’s tale. And so the Cat Trial came to an end in March of 1934, thus ending litigation over a cat, a trial that attracted more attention in Floyd County than any other case tried at the courthouse up to that time. Oh, that all of our court cases could be so simple!