Animal Rights Activists Have To Pay Millions To Circus For Phony Claims

Trigger

Perhaps one of the least noticed news of past week (5/12 - 5/18/2014) was a brief notice on page 4 of the Wall Street Journal dated  5/18/2014 (U.S. edition) titled “Legal Settlement/Animal Rights Groups Pay Circus Producers Millions”.

Here the link (subscription required) to a related op-ed by the WSJ. Here is the link to a related blog post by the WSJ.

Here is salient excerpt from the above blog (emphasis added):

“A settlement reached between animal rights groups and the producers of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus serves as a cautionary tale about the consequences of making an allegation in federal court that you have trouble backing up.

The Humane Society of the United States and other animal-rights groups have paid Feld Entertainment a combined $15.75 million to settle allegations by the company that the groups and their lawyers bribed a former circus employee to make up allegations that Feld abused Asian elephants in its circus.

The settlement announced Thursday puts to rest what a federal judge and legal observers described as an extraordinary, 14-year legal battle that began with claims of animal abuse but developed into a costly embarrassment for some of the nation’s leading animal rights organizations.

The two sides reached a deal as discovery was ramping up in Feld’s civil racketeering case against the groups.

Feld brought the case after it emerged that animal rights groups had paid close to $200,000 to Tom Rider, a former elephant cleaner and feeder who claimed the company had abused its elephants in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

The animal rights litigants were already on the hook for Feld’s attorney’s fees after a federal judge last year slapped the groups and their counsel with an unprecedented penalty for making “frivolous,” “vexatious,” and “groundless” claims in court against Feld.”

Animal Rights Activists Involved

Humane Society and American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals were the two groups specifically named in the articles above.

Take Away

1. Bogus, frivolous litigation is to be expected from fanatics.
2. People should always cautiously evaluate claims, in particular in form of images, made by animal rights activists
3. Hopefully, donors to such big name animal rights groups like Humane Society or PETA will wake up
4. We all (animal rights activists included) should be thankful that the owners of these famous circuses fought this long legal battle