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Lawsuit accuses dolphins of 'wilful' harm

Forget the healing powers of swimming with dolphins at Monkey Mia, it turns out our cheeky flippered friends are actually out to harm, or so suggests a lawsuit launched in Chicago last…

user iconLawyers Weekly • 24 August 2009 • SME Law
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Forget the healing powers of swimming with dolphins at Monkey Mia, it turns out our cheeky flippered friends are actually out to harm, or so suggests a lawsuit launched in Chicago last week.

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Allecyn Edwards is suing the Chicago Zoological Society and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County after she slipped and fell near an exhibit where several Atlantic bottlenose dolphins were performing at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago in 2008. In the lawsuit, Edwards alleges that the zoo "recklessly and wilfully trained and encouraged the dolphins to throw water at the spectators in the stands, making the floor wet and slippery."

Edwards is claiming more than US$50,000 (AU$60,000) damages for medical expenses, lost wages and physical and emotional trauma as a result of the fall.

The lawsuit not only reaffirms the United States as home to some of the world's most creative reasons for litigation, but also poses the question: just how exactly can dolphins throw water without possessing any arms?

Folklaw eagerly awaits the outcome of the case, and any potential sentencing of the rogue dolphins. Surely they wouldn't imprison them in a small, confined space, forcing them to repay their debt to society by public humiliation involving jumping though hoops and balancing balls on their nose?

Ghosts of the Aquatic Dead, anyone?

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