flanerie.org

How do you value the loss of a person?

Looking just at financial loss, you could total up their future income. Not that you know what it would be, but you could make a guess. But they would pay taxes, so maybe look at future net income. Some of that income would be spent on food, clothing and transport which will not now be required, so that could be deducted. It quickly gets complicated, which is why lawyers are worth so much, either dead or alive.

When they aren't purely domestic pets, cats have a financial value, and this was especially true in centuries gone by. In the cities they reduced the risk of disease with their rodent hunting talents, although this was not that well understood and cat persecution (for being in league with the devil!) contributed to the spread of the black death.

Out in the countryside cats protected grain stores from rodents, and a cat was a valuable asset. If you killed a neighbour's cat, you were expected to compensate him for the loss. But how? Back to that valuation problem. Do you replace the cat, or do you compensate for what the cat provides - protection from rodents.

In Wales, in the time of Owen Glendower (or Owain Glyndwr for the purists) a simple rule of thumb was used. With the dead cat on the floor, raise its tail vertically, and then form a pile of grain that has the same height as the tail. That is the value of the cat.

Hardly a precise system - the pile of grain will be more or less depending on its stickiness, and tails vary in length, and presumably are not directly correlated to rodent-catching ability. But given that asset valuation is inherently uncertain, it was a simple rule, understood by all, was easily enforced and provided relevant compensation.

So now you know how to value a cat.