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With Tatiana's brutal attack nearing its one-year anniversary, the tiger's victim family sued the city of San Francisco and the San Francisco Zoo today for wrongful death. If you recall, the big cat escaped from her grotto last Christmas Day, attacking and killing 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. According to reports, Marilza and, Carlos' parents, claim that "the zoo and the city, as owners of Tatiana, the Siberian tiger that jumped over its enclosure and mauled Sousa and two of his friends, are liable for Sousa's death, according to their attorney Michael Cardoza." The bumbling Dhaliwal brothers, Carlos' "friends," were also injured when the Tatiana jumped out of her pit. Word is the brothers, while drunk and/or high, taunted the tiger, which prompted the attack. Allegedly.
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I Searched a little bit and found the Dhaliwals' court case against the Zoo.
Their complaint is a public document, might be interesting reading if someone pulled it off of PACER. Don't want to use my employer's account to do it, though. Northern District of California #3:08-cv-05094
Can someone please sue the Sousa familly on behalf of Tatiana?
The Dhaliwals should be sued for both deaths since they were the ones who pissed in Tatiana's habitat.
I hope they don't get a penny. Their son was an idiot who taunted and harassed a TIGER. No one deserves to get paid for natural selection.
I don't care what rumours the zoo's hired PR flack spread about the victims of the attack (and I don't mean Tatiana). There is not a shred of credible evidence that there was any more taunting than is done by many other zoo visitors on a regular basis. Why the zoo didn't put up signs cautioning guests not to taunt animals until after this happened, is a mystery to me.
In any event, there is no excuse for a tiger enclosure that doesn't keep the tigers enclosed. The character of the young men has nothing to do with the fact that one is dead and the other two are scarred as a result of the zoo's negligence.
And, changing the subject, Happy Holidays to Brock!
People have no sense of shame anymore. If I were this family, I would be so embarrassed I'd just keep my head down and wait for the story to go away. But no, gotta profit from their son's stupidity.
The PR is a lie. That enclosure should have been able to handle those tigers, taunting or no. A man and a tiger are dead. This is the zoo's responsibility. People do stupid shit at zoos all the time. When an animal escapes, the zoo is at fault.
Of course the tiger shouldn't have been able to get out of the cage. On the other hand, I celebrate natural selection and think those kids deserved to be mauled by a tiger. Just my opinion. I don't think the parents should be compensated for the death of their son. How about a victory for decency and common sense?
If the kid who was mauled had been a few months older and legally an adult, would the family be able to sue for compensation? And if the kid had assaulted somebody that day, instead of being attacked, do you think he could have been tried as an adult?
If I was the judge, the parent's would get nothing. I can't believe there's no waiver of liability to protect the zoo in circumstances where a person deliberately provokes an animal.
And @atthebeach, there were signs up around the tiger enclosure and by the apes warning people not to taunt the animals. Also, regarding " not a shred of credible evidence that there was any more taunting than is done by many other zoo visitors on a regular basis" is a sentence that, standing alone, means barely anything. There are witness reports from that day that came out immediately. Is not the account given by a mother of two credible to you? What kind of "hard evidence" do you want? And what kind of evidence is there of "hired PR flack"? I call bullshit.
The zoo's got problems. I love it, but I think it should be shut down. It's not an appropriate climate for most of these animals and the management is incompetent.
@jimbrowski: I'm not sure that being a "mother of two," is necessarily a bona fide. She’d have to be a mother of four before I believed her. On the other hand, I'm a mother of two, and my kids have done all kinds of things, good and bad. If one of them was killed by a tiger, I'd want to be compensated big time, no matter how they were behaving. Besides, Sousa’s mother said he was a good boy, and that should count equally.
It's uncontroverted that the zoo hired Sam Singer, a $350 an hour Bay-area PR consultant who specializes in crisis control, to help spin the tiger mauling in a way that would minimize the damage to the zoo's reputation.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/01/07/MNCTU9G2L.DTL
I do agree that the zoo should be closed, and probably converted to a homeless shelter for people. What's to be done with the then homeless tigers is another problem. Maybe, give them a bus ticket to LA?
As I've said previously, I think the parents should get nothing.
I only take issue with this: "Besides, Sousa’s mother said he was a good boy, and that should count equally."
No, a mother's protestations that her son was a good boy should not carry equal weight to the statement of an unbiased bystander. What's she going to say? He was a horrible, troublemaking shithead? No one ever says that about a dead relative, even if it's true. The bystander who reported these kids' actions had no reason to lie, while a mother has every reason.
We don't know much about this mother of two, but I haven't seen any reports that she was "unbiased," or that she "had no reason to lie." Maybe she didn't like the Dhaliwal's looks or ethnicity, not just their behavior? Maybe she just likes tigers more than people? Who knows? She wasn't there when the tiger escaped - she came forward later with her version of earlier events. People's recollections of events can be accurate or inaccurate; who knows about her?
http://www.socialpc.com/Psychology/Eyewitnesses-Reliability.html
Here's CBS's reporting of the investigation of people (including the victims) behaving badly at the zoo on the day in question:
http://cbs5.com/local/tiger.behavior.experts.2.633569.html
All of them deserved to be attacked by lions, penguins, and monkeys, I guess.
The "official" investigations did mostly all report that the zoo was understaffed on that day. Understaffed zoo with inadequate animal enclosures = a good chance of a disaster, and the victims could have been anyone, including the mother of two.
"Why the zoo didn't put up signs cautioning guests not to taunt animals until after this happened, is a mystery to me."
Perhaps they were naively believing their guests had at least a shred of common sense. Sigh.
But sure, go ahead, sue the stupidity away.
There have been no reports the woman WAS biased or had reason to lie. There is certainly more credibility to a completely unrelated person coming forward to say "they were taunting the tigers" than a grieving mother wailing that her son was "a good boy."
But don't worry, I'm sure you'll get a nice bonus when you or your boss wins this case. ;-)
hee! bluecanary, you are always a pleasure to read.
Regardless of whether the Zoo is at fault or the Dhaliwal brothers, one thing is certain. The ones punished will be San Francisco taxpayers, who will pay a lot for this fiasco.
If you get eaten by a tiger it's gonna be your fault. I do support the mother receiving a copy of "Grizzly Man" as compensation, though.
This is ridiculous those kids are jerks and should be reprimanded! The poor tiger was trying to probably protect itself! I'm sorry but it's sad when parents can't control their kids; considering that they had criminal records and they shouldn't be allowed to sue the city. The poor tiger is the one who suffered out of this.
These kids were drunk and knew exactly what they were doing. Kids are dumb and don't think I will give them that, but that does not excuse them causing the death of this animal. I think the SF Zoo should sue the family for being drunk in public and intentially causing the death of an innocent bystander, the tiger that being. Besides, was this kid even old enough to drink. Even though he is dead shouldn't his family be brought up on charges of allowing him to have alcohol? I think his dad or mom gave him alcohol and said do what ever. Freaking lawbreakers, I hope they all die like that poor lion did for doing nothing more then any human would have done.