Family dog summoned to jury duty

The five-year-old dog’s owner Barrett Griner said he received a juror summons last week for someone with the first name IV and last name Griner.

According to the owner, that is the name legally given by him to his pet.

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“She’s a female, so I named her ‘IV’ without the ‘Y’ as sort of a play on words,” said Griner in an interview. “Somebody had to physically type in that name and they didn’t pay any bit of attention to it.”

“Nobody in my house is named IV except the German Shepherd.”

Griner said he soon realized the possible reason behind the confusion. The dog’s name, IV Griner, is a play on his own name, Barrett Griner the fourth, which he writes using Roman numerals.

“I just still wasn’t sure if the jury duty notice was intended for me or the dog.”

According to the country’s clerk office, the notices are computer-generated and frequently include name errors.

This isn’t the first time this week that an animal has been asked to perform one’s civic duty.

Earlier this week in England, a Rottweiler cross named Zeus was reportedly sent a polling card to vote in the upcoming elections for the European Parliament.

“I can remember when the people came round to do the census,” said the dog’s owner Russell Hoyle. “I remember saying ‘There is myself and my wife. My son is not old enough to vote. We have got Zeus living here as well and he is 63 in dog years.’”

Hoyle said when he asked his best friend how he planned to vote, the dog let out what appeared to be a big yawn.

In 2010, Sal the cat in Boston was also called to jury duty. The animal’s owners filed a request to have their feline disqualified under the provision that Sal was “unable to speak and understand English.”

The request was denied after the judicial branch said that “jurors are not expected to speak perfect English.”