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Critters Legal, Laws, and Regs

Feld Entertainment Circus Elephants Finally Find a Home

Take equal parts dealing with Trump as President and then COVID and you have an explanation for why I didn’t notice that there was a piece of outstandingly good news beginning in 2020.

The Feld Entertainment/Ringling Brothers elephants I had written about in the past have finally found a good and loving home in a sanctuary in northern Florida.

For years I followed the animal welfare court cases related to Feld Entertainment’s indifferent and callous care of the elephants in the organization’s famous circus. I had though of writing a book on the longest of the court cases, Animal Welfare Institute (formerly ASPCA) vs. Feld Entertainment. Even today, one of my most popular web pages is a PDF listing incidents with elephants in circuses in North America.

When Kenneth Feld retired the Ringling Brothers Circus, and the circus elephants, they were out of sight out of mind but we all knew their care would continue to be indifferent, their future dismal.

Now, the elephants run free at the White Oak sanctuary, in a lovely home with lakes and forests and they’re no longer chained up for days at a time on cold concrete.

Though Feld Entertainment is attempting to paint themselves in the best light with this move, they sold the elephants to the sanctuary; they did not give the elephants to the sanctuary. I suspect the reason why is equal parts Feld’s daughters telling him to move on and the cost and upkeep of the elephants when Feld Entertainment was hit by COVID losses. Regardless of the underlying reasons behind it all, we can celebrate the fact that Feld no longer has elephants and the elephants, and we, can all move on to something better.

 

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Critters

Animal welfare groups settle with Feld Entertainment

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.

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Legal, Laws, and Regs

Judge strikes blow against groups

Think back on the last donation you made for a cause. Perhaps it was to the Natural Resource Defense Council to aid them in their court battle to protect the Palisades Interstate Park. Maybe it was the Sierra Club, to support its Clean Air Act lawsuit against a Montana coal-fired power plant, or to any organization or individual battling Chevron in its epic, and manic court fight against Ecuadorians, lawyers, journalists, filmmakers, big tech companies, and most US environmentalists.

The donation was made. Your side of the court battle will win, or it won’t. End of story. Or at least, you think it’s the end of the story.

Imagine that eight years after you made the donation, you get a legal letter or subpoena from an intimidating Washington DC law firm representing the coal plant or oil company, informing you you’re going to be deposed and/or forced to appear in court in an ongoing racketeering lawsuit against the organization you supported. Said lawyers will explain that they are seeking co-plaintiffs in their multimillion dollar lawsuit, with an implication underlying the communication that if you’re not with us, you’re agin us.

And all because you donated $10.00 to an organization like the NRDC or the Sierra Club, to support them in their efforts.

Does this sound far-fetched, insane, impossible? Think again, because that’s just what’s happening in the RICO court case brought by Feld Entertainment (parent company of the Ringling Brothers circus) against several animal welfare groups and individuals because of the groups’ legal efforts on behalf of circus elephants.

Magistrate Judge Facciola of the DC district court ordered the animal welfare group defendants (the Humane Society of the US, the Animal Welfare Institute, Born Free USA, and Fund for Animals), to turn over confidential donor lists containing the names and contact information for every person or organization that donated money to the groups to support the then Endangered Species Act (ESA) lawsuit against Ringling Brothers.

From the order:

Accordingly, defendants will have to provide Feld with the names of 1) those donors who received a solicitation and earmarked a donation to support the ESA lawsuit or Rider (or both); and 2) those donors who attended a fund raiser and earmarked a donation in the same way. Donors who neither received a solicitation nor attended a fund raiser cannot possibly have been defrauded and therefore the disclosure of their identities is unnecessary.

By denying the animal welfare groups’ motion for a protective order for the donor information, Judge Facciola is giving permission for Feld Entertainment’s lawyers to contact, and question, these individuals. Feld’s lawyers assert in court documents that those who donated to the animal welfare groups in relation to this court action were defrauded, and would, therefore, be willing to enter the court as co-plaintiffs with Feld Entertainment, owner of Ringling Brothers circus…the organization considered the poster child for circuses with trained elephant acts, the very thing these donors deplore.

Not a problem, you might think, and seemingly Judge Facciola concurs with you. The scenario Facciola seems to have in mind is that Feld’s lawyers will politely have a chit chat with the folks, ask a few questions, get a few replies, and life will go on. And if the donors despise Ringling Brothers as much as I say, these polite chit chats should be short, and to the point.

Real life is never as simple or as black and white as court documents may imply. I have read most of the deposition transcripts from the earlier ESA (Endangered Species Act) case, which Judge Facciola most likely has not. Of course, he hasn’t; he wasn’t the presiding judge in that case. If he had, though, he might come to realize, as I have, that the opinion Judge Sullivan formed about the ESA case was based, for the most part, on out-of-context responses by an unsophisticated man from the Midwest (Tom Rider), under a daunting barrage of questions fired by an intimidating group of high powered Washington DC lawyers. I would like to think that if Judge Facciola did better understand the actual circumstances leading up to Judge Sullivan’s decision—the reality, not the fiction presented by Feld in court documents—he might have paused, just a moment, before subjecting innocent non-party citizens to the same treatment.

I’ve already sent out warnings into the community of those fighting for the welfare of circus elephants about what may be coming their way. I’m not a lawyer, so can’t give advice, but I have stated if I were to receive notice from Feld’s people, I would never appear in a deposition without having a lawyer present—yet another unconscionable burden on people who did nothing more than donate ten bucks eight years ago in order to help circus elephants.

Judge Facciola’s decision was a not a good one—disregarding argument and cavalier as regarding the First Amendment protections due to the non-party donors. That’s the key: he’s disregarded the rights of those not represented in the court room. And by doing so, he’s setting precedent that should seriously worry any group fighting for any cause—whether it be against the Keystone pipeline, for the wolves, in support of safer and healthier food, clean water and air, or circus elephants.

Thankfully, the animal welfare groups are fighting back to the limits set by law. But I worry, I seriously worry, the impact this case can have on any activist group in the future. Particularly after the Chevron court win and the glee with which corporations now consider RICO as both shield and weapon.

Think about it: how willing will you be to donate ten bucks to a cause if it meant you’ll be yanked into court years later?

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Critters Legal, Laws, and Regs

Ringling Brothers Parent Company going after advocacy group donor lists

Feld Entertainment, Inc (FEI), owner of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus, is attempting to coerce confidential donor lists from the animal welfare groups it has battled with for 13+ years in the DC federal courts. FEI’s lawyers are doing so in an attempt to prove that the animal welfare organizations it’s suing—the Humane Society of the United States, Animal Welfare Institute, Fund for Animals, Born Free USA, and the Wildlife Advocacy Project—engaged in “donor fraud” in their solicitation of funds to continue their battle to help circus elephants.

Specifically, FEI’s discovery request demands the following:

27. All documents that refer, reflect or relate to donations (whether financial or in kind) that were designated or otherwise earmarked by the donor for use in connection with the ESA Action or that were designated or otherwise earmarked by the donor to support work or any other form of activity concerning Tom Rider, FEI or FEI’s elephants.

28. All documents, not otherwise covered by Request No. 27, that refer, reflect or relate to donations (whether financial or in kind) that were made as a result of the ESA Action, Tom Rider, FEI or FEI’s elephants.

29. All documents sufficient to identify each and every person or entity who made any of the donations described in Request Nos. 27 and 28.

Considering that any donation to any of the agencies in the last 15 years could have come about, at least in part, because of the agencies’ actions in regards to circus elephants, and we’re basically looking at giving FEI access to every person who has donated to one of these animal welfare groups. Even if the court narrows the request to only those donations specifically designated for the struggle to free Ringling Brothers circus elephants, we’re still looking at exposing a significant number of donors to direct inclusion in a complicated, intimidating legal action.

Donors’ freedom of association rights, guaranteed under the First Amendment, allow us to support organizations and causes without fear of repercussion or reprisal. An important aspect to this is being able to privately provide financial support to advocacy groups, as long as state and federal laws are met.

The only possible reason for demanding these lists is so that FEI’s lawyers can, we presume, contact donors directly in an attempt to find “co-plaintiffs” for its lawsuit. FEI assures us it would not do so to “harass” the people, according to its definition of “harass”, but we can easily imagine the shock people would experience receiving a letter from FEI’s lawyers related to this lawsuit. Depending on how the letter is worded, many of these people may feel that if they don’t join with Feld, they’ll find themselves lumped into the lawsuit on the other side. This is the worst case scenario demonstrating why it’s essential for these donor lists to be kept private.

From the animal welfare group’s request for a protective order against this demand:

Subjecting individuals to the stress of depositions, the cost of retaining counsel, and the risk of crushing RICO liability, for their simple act of contributing to a nonprofit organization, is incompatible with the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and association. Furthermore, FEI’s history with regard to animal welfare and animal rights supporters raises real concerns that the harassment to which donors could be subjected would not stop at being embroiled in this litigation.

As an excuse for its actions, the FEI lawyers note that several donors to the organizations are already a matter of public record. However, the lawyers dance around the fact that the donors who have been listed publicly are typically either organizational donors who must indicate their donations in their own public tax forms or individual or organizations donating over a certain amount (usually $5,000), requiring public disclosure.

FEI doesn’t want these people and organizations, though. It wants the names of the little guy, like you and me. FEI’s lawyers can’t intimidate organizations and wealthier donors, both of whom have easy access to legal advice. But you and I? Look around you; look at your friends, family, and co-workers…how would most of these folk react to receiving an intimidating communication from a high priced and powerful law firm? How would you?

There are also serious consequences to the animal welfare organizations. All of the organizations involved in the lawsuit have posted privacy policies. These policies are necessary if they hope to get decent scores from the charity rating services, such as Charity Navigator and the BBB. If the animal welfare organizations are forced into giving their donor lists over to an entity their supporters consider an adversary, such action will, most likely, impact negatively on their rating score. Charity Navigator and the BBB may be sympathetic to the fact that the animal welfare groups have been coerced into giving over their lists, but charity ratings services are focused on providing service to donors, and they’ll have to respond accordingly. Lower charity ratings can, and do, impact on donations.

More importantly, people are going to hesitate before donating to any organization or effort that will end up involving them in the middle of long, drawn out, and incredibly acrimonious legal action.

What’re FEI’s lawyers take on the issue of donor privacy? A laughable suggestion that if only the court would grant its request to have everything in the case covered under a blanket protective order, the donors First Amendment rights won’t be an issue, because the donor lists wouldn’t be made public. I call this suggestion “laughable” because FEI’s lawyers again dance around—on tippy toes, like little Brooks Brothers-suited ballarinas—the fact that the one organization the donors loath the most is the one who would get their contact information and donor activity. Not only get this information but also use it to contact them in hopes of dragging them into a frightening legal morass.

FEI’s lawyers claim they need this information because the bad ass animal welfare lawyers aren’t allowing them to proceed with their action unless there is more than one plaintiff:

Defendants have placed FEI between the proverbial “rock and a hard place.” They claim that FEI must allege more than one scheme and victim to state a RICO “pattern,” but then argue that the First Amendment blocks any and all discovery as to the second scheme and additional victims alleged in the First Amended Complaint.

Though the lawyers for the animal welfare groups are very capable, they’re not faster than a speeding bullet, nor can they jump Feld Entertainment’s legal slush fund in a single bound. I believe it is actually the Judge, applying his legal understanding and training, in combination with precedent and the underlying law, that is forcing FEI into the proverbial “rock and hard place”. This case was fragile from the very beginning—allowing the loss of First Amendment protections and exposing hundreds or even thousands of people to legal intimidation, in a desperate attempt to make it less so, is unconscionable.

The request is made even more absurd by the fact that this case has been covered in the news for many years. People in the animal welfare movement, especially among those fighting for the welfare of circus elephants, are aware of this case. This story, itself, will be linked in several Facebook groups devoted to elephants, generally, and circus elephants, specifically. This, in addition to a Facebook page devoted to the court cases. No one has come forward, no one has joined with Feld. No one.

Hopefully, the Judge will consider the wide dissemination of this information and will determine there is no need to give FEI these donor lists…and the donors First Amendment rights will be preserved.

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Legal, Laws, and Regs

Bitch

The intent was to finish my book on the Ringling Brothers animal welfare court cases by year-end. After all, the cases have settled down into an analysis of legal fees, and long, silent periods reflecting discovery, with a trial date a year or two (or three) into the future. Publish now, incorporate an epilog into the e-book when all is said and done, and I’ll have managed to write about an ongoing legal case and still keep readers updated.

Then I found out Tom Rider died, and everything has changed.

Who is Tom Rider? There are, in my opinion, four people pivotal to these court cases: Kenneth Feld, who is owner of Ringling Brothers circus; Judge Emmet Sullivan, who presided over both the Endangered Species Act (ESA) Case and the beginnings of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case; John Simpson, Feld’s lead attorney, who decided after coming into the ESA case that the best defense was an aggressive offense; and Tom Rider, the only individual plaintiff in the ESA case. Not only was Tom the only individual plaintiff, but he was a key witness: a man who could testify from first-hand experience about how Ringling Brothers people treated the elephants.

Tom’s importance as both plaintiff and witness made him a big legal target in the court case; a rather daunting place to be for a man who never imagined he’d spend the last years of his life in a court fight over circus elephants.

Tom Rider was born in a small, rural town in Illinois. He wasn’t an especially ambitious man, dropping out of high school, and having his ups and downs in the military. He typically didn’t stay at any job for long. He hauled garbage, sold shoes, was a bouncer at a strip club, worked at Disneyworld for a time, got married, and divorced, and kicked around the country doing odd jobs. Eventually, he ended up as “barn man” for the Ringling Brothers circus.

A circus barn man is someone who helps feed the animals, give them their water, and shovel shit. With elephants, a lot of shit. But Tom stayed with the job two and a half years—longer than he stayed with most jobs. He liked working in the circus. He liked that he had his own little cubby hole of a place in the “Pie Car”, which was the train car that contained the circus kitchen. He liked the idea of working for the circus. After all, think about it: working for a circus. Now, how cool is that? If we’re defined by what we do, there are worse things than working for a circus.

Tom was a plain man, some would even say he was a crude man. He peppered his speech with less than polite terms, primarily watched knock ’em, sock ’em action movies, and liked junk food—especially Hostess confections like Snoballs and birch beer (a southern variation of root beer).

Tom also liked to talk and to tell stories. He liked to tell one story about his time at Ringling Brothers and his experience with one of the elephants, Karen.

Not all elephants react with docility to being dressed up in costumes and made to dance to rock and roll tunes. Some elephants, like *Karen, express their unhappiness in ways that can be detrimental to human beings. American circus history is littered with the dead and broken bodies of those people who have experienced elephant frustration, fear, and anger. Though Karen hasn’t yet left a trail of dead bodies in her wake, at Ringling Brothers she is treated with a great deal of caution.

The story Tom liked to tell about Karen was the time she trapped him in a bathroom when the circus was in Boston. Tom was in the bathroom cleaning it when Karen planted herself in front of the door so he couldn’t get out. Tom was stuck for 15 minutes, banging on the door, hollering for Karen to get her butt out of the way, until he got the idea to throw his broom through the door to distract Karen. It worked.

Once Tom was out, though, Karen started tossing hay and apples at Tom, peeved at his escape. I can just visualize that great big elephant, delicately grabbing an apple with her trunk, and lobbing it at Tom as he went about his work. When Tom recounted the story, he probably referred to Karen as a “bitch”, as in, “That bitch had me trapped in the bathroom for 15 minutes! And then she started tossing apples at me!”

When I told Roomie the story, he laughed. I laughed, it’s a funny story. But in the DC courts, an innocent story became a weapon in the hands of an aggressive legal defense.

Feld’s lawyer, John Simpson zeroed in on Tom’s use of “bitch”, because how could Tom care about the elephants and talk about Karen that way? To say she’s dangerous (she is); that she didn’t like him (she probably doesn’t like most Ringling employees), and especially—and this is the ultimate sin—to call her a bitch in his story if Tom truly cared for Karen?

From the trial, with Simpson cross-examining Tom:

Q. Do you recall making — that same film where you made a video of the bags of poop, do you recall also making a video of the elephant Karen?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. You called her a bitch, did you not?

A. Yes.

Q. It wasn’t in loving terms, was it?

A. It was not a derogatory term. I didn’t say, you know — I wouldn’t use rough language. I did call her — it’s like bitch, nice, it was — I was thinking of the time in Boston when it happened.

Q. So you called her a nice bitch, is that your testimony?

A. No, I called her a bitch.

Q. Well, let me refer you to that tape, sir, Defendant’s Exhibit 30, at counter 16:45 to 16:55.

(video played)

Q. So your testimony, sir, was that was a compliment you were giving the elephant?

A. Yes, I mean it was not a derogatory term. I called my daughter that.

Q. You call your daughters a bitch?

A. Oh, yeah.

Q. They don’t take offense to it?

A. No.

Judge Emmet Sullivan presided over the ESA case in the federal district court in DC.

Judge Sullivan is interesting in that he’s never lived outside of the Washington DC area. He was born in DC, grew up in DC (the son of a DC policeman), went to school at Howard University in DC, practiced law in DC, and is now a judge in a DC federal court room. This is a man who has had very limited experience of what passes for life outside of DC. He certainly has had very little experience with someone like Tom Rider: a largely uneducated circus roustabout from the midwest.

Judge Sullivan is also a rather impetuous man. He’s best known for his anger at the Department of Justice in the Senator Stevens’ trial, where he took the unprecedented move to open an investigation into the DoJ’s actions. Another time, he felt a police officer wasn’t telling the truth and walked off the bench—an act that led to a mistrial.

During the trial of a burglary suspect in the mid-1980s, Sullivan walked off the bench in disgust after a police officer gave conflicting testimony, said Roscoe Howard, a friend, and former federal prosecutor. After calming down, Sullivan declared a mistrial because he had prejudiced the case. A few days later, the judge reversed course and released the man.

All three traits that best exemplify Judge Sullivan—his noticeably narrow background, his strong, even at times, intolerant moral code, and his impetuousness—were present in the ESA trial. In particular, the judge had problems understanding Tom Rider, and his lack of understanding eventually tipped over into barely concealed disdain.

Before calling a recess after the questioning about Tom’s use of “bitch”, Sullivan questioned Tom directly about the term (something permissible and even encouraged in a bench trial):

THE COURT: But in your words you called her a bitch affectionately, and then you said like you would call your daughters, right?

THE WITNESS: Yes.

THE COURT: Help me understand all of that.

THE WITNESS: Well, it’s — you know, it’s like somebody — if I would have used the F-word prior to that, to me that would be a nasty way of saying it. But to just say the word bitch is — I mean, I’ve called my daughter that, and it’s like if she does something, I go bitch. It’s kind of a — it’s not the same as if you’re putting a derogatory or a four-letter or six-letter, whatever word in front of it. I’m just saying the word bitch. In other words, when I said that by the train I was thinking of the incident where she blocked me in the toilet for 15 minutes and I couldn’t get her out. That’s what was in my mind, and I just calmly said bitch. It was not — I wasn’t mad at her or something like that where — that’s a difference in the terminology that I would use. But yeah, I’ve called all my daughters that. Just out of affection, it’s not a derogatory.

THE COURT: All right. On that note, we’ll take a 15-minute recess. We’ll start back at 2:45

Later, when Katherine Meyer, a lawyer for the animal welfare groups, was questioning Tom, the Judge again returned to Tom’s use of the word, “bitch”:

THE COURT: You were just teasing the elephant by calling her that name?

THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.

THE COURT: Hardly a term of endearment, though, is it?

THE WITNESS: Not — I guess it’s not — I just — I do it to my daughters, you know, I do it to her. It’s like —

THE COURT: You call your daughters that?

THE WITNESS: I don’t do it as like — it’s just, you know, when you’re — you know, she’s — like my daughter does something that’s, you know, I don’t want to nag and yell and scream at her. It’s like, you know — especially if she starts nagging at me or something. It’s like a term of endearment to me. I don’t know how to other to put it.

THE COURT: I think you said it all.

THE WITNESS: Yeah. Yes.

Said it all, indeed. Tom Rider’s use of “bitch” would return again, and again, and again—in Feld’s lawyers’ documents, defended in the animal welfare group’s own documents, and in Judge Sullivan’s decisions. In essence, if anyone act lost the ESA case for the animal welfare groups, it was Tom’s use of the word “bitch”.

Yet, how wrong was his use of the world? Living in Missouri, as I do, not all that far from Tom’s hometown in Illinois, how he used the word “bitch” isn’t all that uncommon here, and the use of “bitch” as a joking reference to friends and family member is a frequent happening in modern parlance. There was far too much attention paid to Tom’s use of the word, “bitch”. Far too much.

Tom never had much of a chance in the DC courts. Toss an unsophisticated man who tends to be garrulous, into an intimidating courtroom environment filled with high-priced lawyers from prestigious law firms, in a city as far away in temperament and personality as rural Illinois is from DC, and you have an adversarial lawyer’s dream come true. The combination worked for Feld in the ESA case, and I imagine Feld’s attorneys expected the same success during the trial in the RICO case.

But then Tom died, and everything has changed.

It’s difficult to trip up a dead man in court, even more difficult to speak ill of a dead man no longer around to defend himself. The RICO case won’t be a bench trial, it will be in front of a jury, and we can expect that not all of jury members will have problems with the use of a word like “bitch”.

The last few months since Tom died we’ve seen a blizzard of courtroom filings, including a monstrously large motion for legal fees from Feld demanding 25 million dollars from the animal welfare groups (and their lawyers) for the ESA case. The amount is more than what all of the animal welfare groups—The Fund for Animals, Animal Welfare Institute, and Born Free USA—have in combined assets, so now Feld is attempting to bring the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) into the ESA case. This, after the case has already been decided, with the HSUS not participating in the case or the trial—participation that may, for all we know, have altered the outcome of the case. The reason Feld gives for pulling in the HSUS at this very late date is that the HSUS has formed a de facto merger because of a contractual relationship with one of the animal welfare groups in the ESA case, the Fund for Animals. However, the concept of a de factor merger is basically foreign to nonprofits, and the groups still exist as separate legal entities.

But let’s be upfront about the real reason for pulling in HSUS, shall we? The HSUS has economic reserves the Feld lawyers would just love to tap.

(Feld also included HSUS in the RICO lawsuit, which I’ll have more to talk about a little later.)

The attorney fee request is breathtaking, dragging in HSUS after all the decisions have been made seems blatantly unfair (and more than a little screwy), but the most recent, and alarming, motion happened in the RICO case. The animal welfare groups filed for a protective order because Feld’s lawyers are demanding lists of private donor names and contact information. Why the demand? Because Feld’s RICO case is fragile, at best, and the only way it can possibly proceed is if Feld Entertainment works to establish that it is not the only entity defrauded by the nefarious and dastardly animal welfare groups; that those who donated for the fight to free circus elephants are also victims.

(With an implication in earlier filings that if the donors weren’t victims, they must then be co-conspirators.)

The request is extraordinary and chilling, as reflected in the motion for the protective order:

Should FEI [Feld Entertainment Inc.] gain access to confidential donor information, both current and future donors would see their protected political conduct chilled by the fear of financial burden and reprisal. This fear would be particularly well founded in light of FEI’s history of harassment and retaliation against individuals and organizations that seek to remedy animal mistreatment. The chilling effect on the donors on whom the Nonprofit Organizations depend for their continued existence would also irreparably harm the Nonprofit Organizations, along with other animal welfare and animal rights organizations that depend on the same donors for support. FEI’s “donor fraud” argument is unprecedented: a Court ruling that an adversary of a nonprofit advocacy organization may obtain that organization’s donor information merely by alleging that the organization misled its donors would set a disastrous precedent that would alter the legal landscape for all nonprofit and advocacy organizations.

Feld’s lawyers are not stupid people. They know that they’ll have a fight on their hands by asking the courts to set aside the Constitution in allowing their request. They had implied in earlier hearings they would not do so, so what has changed to make them so desperate?

Tom Rider died. Their own warped version of “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” they have become dependent on has ended before it began.

As it stands today, decisions I expected to be years in the future could be happening in the next few months, and both the ESA and the RICO cases might soon be over. My Ringling Brothers book is on hold as I wait for new developments. Unlike in the past, where I rarely talked about the case at my site, I’ll be providing frequent updates on what’s happening with court cases—the RICO case, in particular, since it can have such serious ramifications for animal welfare and environmental groups. The animal welfare groups can’t discuss the case because if they do, it ends up featured prominently in a Feld filing demanding yet more control over the release of information about the case.

The animal welfare groups and associated lawyers couldn’t even briefly issue a note about Tom’s death. I found out about it from a court filing that stated simply, “Pursuant to F.R.C.P. 25(a) notice is hereby served of the death of Defendant Tom Rider on October 1, 2013.”

A hell of a way to find out that one of the primary people in your story is dead. Rest in peace, Tom. Rest in peace, you goodhearted bastard, you.

* One major reason for Karen’s temperament could be chronic pain.