Last update
I’ve had a day to get over the shock at the settlement amount.
All of the statements by the animal welfare folk I posted links to make logical sense. And believe it or not, once I got over the shock at the amount of the settlement, I wasn’t necessarily against a settlement in the ESA attorney fee battle—though, I believed it was important to continue the fight in the RICO case. What I had expected was a settlement closer to the amount given in the original animal welfare attorney fee reply—about five million.
This amount would have been a loss for the groups, yes, but it wouldn’t have been such a PR bonanza for Feld. The larger amount, though…that’s going to cut deep, and not just in a monetary sense.
Regardless of what I’ve said today, I am not mad at the groups. I am profoundly disappointed, which, in some ways, is worse.
This settlement has ramifications beyond just the animal welfare groups and the fight for circus elephants. Corporations have started using RICO as a weapon against nonprofits, and what the corporations now see is that nonprofits won’t even stay around to fight a RICO case when one is brought. No matter the “logic” or the legal arguments—and, most likely, the insurance company demands—the harmful consequences of this settlement will have a disturbing and lasting effect.
I have said I won’t finish my original book, and this is true. That book is dead. That book was based on a heroic battle against all odds. I guess, in a way, it was a book of fiction because in our courts and in our philosophical equivalencies, there is no room for heroes.
But I am still going to write something about these cases. I have so much of the history, have spent so much time in research and among court documents. I am going to write something—I’m just not sure what, and I’m not sure when.
second update
Other statements:
From firm of Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal the animal welfare attorneys in the original Endangered Species Act lawsuit.
From the Animal Welfare Institute.
From Wayne Pacelle, President of the Humane Society of the US.
update The Humane Society of the United State has issued a statement. No donor money is going to Feld, the insurance companies that provide liability insurance for the animal welfare groups are most likely paying the costs.
Does this statement make this settlement better?
No.
earlier After all the years following this court case, what I didn’t expect was for the animal welfare groups to basically capitulate to Feld Entertainment.
They agreed to a $15.7 million dollar settlement. Combined with the previous $9.3 million settlement by the ASPCA and Feld Entertainment actually made a profit on this court case.
And oh, how Feld is crowing about it today.
“After winning 14 years of litigation, Feld Entertainment has been vindicated. This case was a colossal abuse of the justice system in which the animal rights groups and their lawyers apparently believed the ends justified the means. It also marks the first time in U.S. history where a defendant in an Endangered Species Act case was found entitled to recover attorneys’ fees against the plaintiffs due to the Court’s finding of frivolous, vexatious and unreasonable litigation,” said Feld Entertainment’s legal counsel in this matter, John Simpson, a partner with Norton Rose Fulbright’s Washington, D.C., office. “The total settlement amounts represent recovery of 100 percent of the legal fees Feld Entertainment incurred in defending against the ESA lawsuit.”
Justice was not served in this case, or with this payment. It’s difficult to see how we can trust any of these animal welfare groups to stay the course with any new litigation or other effort after this settlement.
I had originally planned on writing about this case. I have close to three years of research into these two legal cases. Thousands of dollars of PACER fees, too.
But what good is telling the story when it ends with, “…and the animal welfare groups, tails between their legs, slunk off into the sunset”?
And what of the battle for the circus elephants? Though this settlement doesn’t change the facts—that the life for circus elephants is miserable—how can we continue this fight, when every time we open our mouths, this settlement will get shoved into our faces?
I guess we’ll see what the future holds. I do know, Justice was not served in this case.
