Replying to Woman gets $45,000 for death of cat

so to summarize, my dad showed me an article in our local paper, the kitsap sun. ill sum it up like this:

a woman in seattle sued her neighbor because his dog killed her cat. the guy had to go to jail for 21 days and do 3 months of house arrest... then the woman took him to court and won 45000 dollars because it was so special to her because she found the cat in israel. then at the end of this article shes quoted saying "i didnt go to court to get money. i could either burn his house down or i could go and shoot his dogs in front of him and shoot him, or i could shoot myself. so i decided to be rational and get a lawyer."