The Oregonian | By Aimee Green| May 22, 2026
A Multnomah County jury has awarded $808,000 to a Portland man whose 4-year-old cat contracted bird flu and died after eating raw chicken pet food.
That included $8,000 in veterinary bills that jurors agreed Wild Coast Pet Foods must pay cat owner Tim Hanson.
During the two-day trial this week, attorneys for Hanson argued that the company had assured customers it was testing its raw cat foods for bird flu when it had not. Hanson testified he had felt at ease by the company’s statements, as H5N1 outbreaks on poultry farms began to grip the nation in late 2024 and early 2025.
Kira, his beloved blue-eyed Siamese mix, fell visibly ill a few days after scarfing down Wild Coast Raw Free Range Chicken Formula in late January 2025, Hanson said. Roughly a week later, the feline was gasping for air. A vet said staff had run out of options to make her better, and Hanson said his final goodbye.
“I just held her,” Hanson recounted. “I just told her I loved her so much.”
Kira died by euthanasia on Feb. 9, 2025.
Jurors also found Wild Coast liable for $800,000 in punitive damages after Hanson’s attorney argued that the Tumwater, Wash., company had acted with “conscious indifference” to the health of cats and the owners who sought to protect them.
In all, six cats in Oregon died after eating Wild Coast’s food, said attorney Michael Fuller, who represented Hanson with co-counsel Emily Templeton.
Hanson, however, was the only Oregon cat owner to sue. Fuller told jurors that the company failed to take any responsibility for Kira’s death. To drive home that point, Fuller played the video-recorded testimony of the company’s founder, who said the raw chicken formula had not killed Kira, euthanasia had.
“I’m familiar that the food did get pets sick,” said founder Tyler Duncan, in his recorded deposition. “The owners then chose to euthanize a pet. Right? The food itself did not kill the animal.”
Virginia Hanks, a lead attorney for Wild Coast’s insurance company, Liberty Mutual, declined to comment through a spokesperson. Wild Coast didn’t respond to requests for comment.
A key part of their defense was that Wild Coast committed no “malice.” Instead, attorneys argued that the company relied on a hired laboratory to test for H5N1 and other strains of bird flu.
This week’s verdict is the second largest for a pet-related lawsuit in Oregon history and appears to be one of the loftiest in the nation, Fuller said. The largest money award in Oregon came in 2023, when Fuller secured a nearly $1.4 million verdict for a Portland man whose cat was “catnapped” by his landlord.
The lawsuits against the catnapping landlord and Wild Coast Pet Foods were both defended by the same insurance company, Liberty Mutual. In both cases, the insurance company’s lawyers made lowball offers to settle before going to trial, Fuller said.
“So I don’t think they understand how much Portlanders love cats,” Fuller said.
Cat owner Tim Hanson described Kira as “really affectionate” and always looking for an opportunity to hop into his lap.
Nationwide, the case also is one of the rare lawsuits filed over cats sickened or killed by raw poultry products sold by at least three pet food companies. Portland-based Northwest Naturals recalled some of its raw turkey SKUs in December 2024 after a house cat died in Washington County. In March 2025, Wild Coast Pet Foods and Savage Pet recalled lines of their raw chicken products.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says at least 135 domestic cats have fallen ill with bird flu in 22 states since 2024. An unreported number have died. Though some have been sickened from exposure to wild bird populations, many have been infected from eating raw chicken cat food.
The H5N1 virus hit cats and some other mammals far harder than humans. From 2024 to 2025, 71 people in the U.S. were known to have been infected and two died from H5N1 or a similar strain.
In the days after Kira died in February 2025, Hanson said he asked Wild Coast to pay his bills. He said it was only after he heard nothing back that he decided to file a lawsuit.
“I wanted some accountability,” Hanson told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “And I wanted to do whatever I could to help ensure that other cats don’t get sick and other pet owners don’t have to go through this.”
Hanson, a 58-year-old designer at Nike, said he adopted Kira and her brother from a no-kill animal rescue in Southwest Washington in 2021. They were both two months old.
Kira, he said, grew into a lean 8.5-pound sweetheart. She hopped on his lap while he watched movies. She sauntered across the background of pandemic-era Zoom calls. She rolled over on her back for belly rubs when he walked by.
Hanson said she was smart, too.
“If I was anywhere in the house and I said the word ‘Treats!’ she’d come running,” Hanson said. “Even if she were sleeping, she would just be up and at ‘em.”
Hanson said from the get-go, he pampered Kira and her brother with what he thought was healthy, high-end food: Wild Coast’s raw chicken cat food. At approximately $11 a pound, it wasn’t cheap. That didn’t matter.
“I have a partner,” Hanson said. “We don’t have any kids. And basically our cats are our family.”
Kira and Gabriele Schuster, Tim Hanson’s partner, share a moment.
The siblings purred as they devoured meal after meal, he said.
“They went bonkers for this stuff,” Hanson said.
Hanson’s attorney, Fuller, argued that Wild Coast was deceiving consumers in the last days of 2024 by claiming that it had tested all of its products for bird flu.
Fuller obtained December 2024 text messages from the company’s social media manager to its founder. In them, the manager asked if she could tweak language on Wild Coast’s Instagram page. She wanted to make it appear that the company was already testing its products for bird flu, Fuller said.
“In the statement you wrote ‘we will be testing’ — can that be changed to ‘we are testing’? And ‘will screen’ to ‘is screening’? Just to make things sound like they are happening now?” the social media manager wrote in a text to Duncan, the company’s founder.
Duncan responded: “Those are great changes.”
That same day, the company announced on its Instagram page that “we are testing all of our raw products for all Influenza A subtypes.” More posts followed.
Owner Tim Hanson said he started feeding raw chicken cat food to Kira (left) and Jen (right) after a veterinarian recommended it. He said Wild Coast Pet Foods’ assurances about testing for salmonella, E. coli, listeria and, ultimately, bird flu put his mind at ease.
More than a month later, Hanson said he was out of Wild Coast pet food so he stopped by his local pet store in the Alberta Arts District, just a few blocks from his Northeast Portland home. He spent $47.97 on three 24-ounce tubs.
Fuller told jurors that one of those containers contained the H5N1 virus. An expert testified that Wild Coast’s tests were not the “gold standard,” as the company promised, rather they fell far short.
Kira became lethargic and refused all food.
Hanson brought her to the vet. Staff asked what she had been eating, and when he told them raw food, they seemed alarmed and left the room, Hanson said.
Hanson said when they returned, they were wearing gowns, gloves and masks. He had never seen anything like it.
“But I wasn’t too worried about it,” he said. “Because this food was tested and safe, right?”
Kira’s brother also fell ill but recovered, Hanson said. Meanwhile, Kira’s health continued to declined. Subsequent vet visits did nothing to improve her condition.
Along the way, Hanson said he learned Kira had tested positive for H5N1.
Then, Kira’s health nosedived, Hanson said.
“Her breathing had really changed,” Hanson said. “She was really gasping for air.”
Hanson rushed her to DoveLewis emergency animal hospital in Northwest Portland for her first overnight stay, he said. Even in her weakened state, she still rolled over for what turned out to be her last belly rub.
The next day, Hanson said a veterinarian told him Kira’s situation was dire.
“We had a discussion about mercy, love and suffering,” said Hanson, adding that it was then that he agreed he needed to let her go.
Hanson said he and his partner, Gabriele Schuster, donned N95 masks to prevent themselves from acquiring bird flu. They sat in a small room as staff wrapped Kira in a blanket and set her on his lap. Staff gave Hanson a portable breathing tube that pumped out oxygen so he could hold it next to her lips. He used a tissue to dab fluid that was leaking from her nose and mouth.
Then the couple said their last goodbyes.
The jury of 12 had the ability to award Hanson up to $2 million in punitive damages, plus the $8,000 in vet bills.
Jurors — five who were cat owners and seven who were not — deliberated for less than two hours before reaching the $808,000 verdict.
The hefty six-figure sum, however, isn’t what it first appears to be.
Oregon law mandates that the state receive 70% of all punitive damages verdicts, to be placed into a fund that pays for crime victims’ expenses.
That means Hanson’s overall award will be reduced to $248,000.
But the costs of litigating the case rose well into the six figures, Fuller told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
