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The victims (instigators?) of the Christmastime tiger mauling that left their (sort of) friend, Carlos Sousa Jr., dead, Kulbir and Amritpal Dhaliwal will receive a cool $900.000 from the San Francisco Zoo. According to SF Chronicle, this settlement by the zoo "resolves claims the brothers brought in U.S. District Court against the city, zoo and Sam Singer, a crisis public relations consultant the zoo hired after the attack." The brothers' lawsuit, among other claims, says that the SF Zoo failed at "keeping the 243-pound Siberian tiger named Tatiana in an enclosure that had walls 4 feet lower that what is recommended by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums." It also says that Kulbir Dhaliwal "wasn't attacked until after an employee refused to allow him into the safety of a zoo cafe." Which, yeah, regardless of what you think of the hoodlum brothers, that's kind of cold. Anyway, the Dhaliwal brothers will split the money, which is sure to buy all of the Grey Goose, Drakkar Noir, and criminal defense attorneys they will ever need.
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This has been a horrible week for West Coast judicial decisions.
It wasn't a judicial decision. It was a settlement. Should have tried the case.
Excellent!
If Fubar and Armpit have 900K - that comes out to about 450K each by my math. Given their propensity for making great life decisions, I can only guess that equals around 260 cases of vodka, 1250+/- 8 balls of cocaine, a couple of PS3's, some cheap hookers and a few dozen nights at a hotel in Vegas.
Let destiny run its course.
I hope these tools get hit by a MUNI. Preferably the 71.
Then they will just get more free money.
Well, they could have easily run up $250K in medical bills, particularly if they don't have insurance. Otherwise, a judicial decision that I, as white male with limited life experience, fail to get much of the the reasoning behind.
let's see, split in half, 33% to soulless attorney, collections/repayment from ER for state covered visit (no discount), and finish it off with some karma lawsuits and other outstanding courtcases... yup, they'll be broke ass in about 6monts
Here's how this is going to go down. Assuming they are both in jail right now (I think they are) then this morning they'll get a visit from their friendly neighborhood gang leader. He'll ask for $9,000 a week protection. The money will be gone within a year. Yay!
I'm willing to bet that Geragos is getting 40-50% of it. That's 500k, divided by 2, 250k each. They'll waste it all within 2 years though.
He can't take more than 1/3 by law. Plus his costs.
nice to know that SFist'ers are such great role models, judges of characters, and retain the right to be complete a-holes.
I'm far, far from perfect, but I don't have many qualms believing that I'm a better citizen and human being than the Dhaliwal brothers.
The fact that you are compelled to make such a distinction suggests that isn't the case.
"Compelled" to point out that I as your garden-variety SFist commenter might be a better citizen than someone who taunts enclosed animals, drives drunk, impedes a criminal investigation, engages in theft, etc etc versus actually doing those things? Hmm.
Don't be a twat.
Garden-Variety. Twat. I think everyone who comments on here is English.
Don't be a twat.
Well you've certainly made my case better than I could have hoped. That was simple.
OK, be a twat. I guess a leopard can't change his spots.
Thank you for proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you're a better human being.
This kinda thing makes me want to gag.
Regardless of what the three instigators did, there's simply no excuse for having a dangerous animal in an enclosure that can't hold it. The only way a tiger or something similar should get out is if someone leaves a gate open.
I wonder if the same attitudes here would prevail if the kids had been taunting a pit bull that then jumped a fence and attacked them?
The same damn attitude would prevail as far as I'm concerned.
Only a worthless shithead taunts a captive animal. I wish that tiger had torn those fuckers' heads off.
There is no excuse for stupid people taunting a dangerous animal. The Tiger acted on instincts, these idiots acted on stupidity, persuading this tiger, by being irresponsible. The zoo should keep stupid people from getting in, not for a Tigers to get out.
I am relieved that you do not work in any capacity for the Zoo - because this: "The zoo should keep stupid people from getting in, not for a Tigers to get out. "
Is so f'n stupid that I lost my bearings and thought I was reading SFGate for a moment.
Yes, lets have loads of cultured, smart folks in a zoo where the potentially lethal animals can attack them at any time.
The WORLD should keep stupid people out, but Jesus is just phoning it in these days.
The assholes also (allegedly) pissed in the tiger enclosure. Lined crossed. They're assholes.
I've been basically good to people my whole life and have nothing to show for it except for love and friendship. You can't buy a house with love and friendship. And now these douche bags get 900k. What. The. Fuck. Where's my 900k? I should have just been a douche bag.
It's hard to believe that you've "been basically good to people [your] whole life" when you are calling people you don't know vile names. Your post says more about your character than theirs. Ech.
And now you've judged me. The cycle continues.
One is allowed to have opinions about the character of others. It's akin to a social defense mechanism. It prevents you from doing things like giving crackheads the keys to your apartment.
These particular individuals have been pretty well scrutinized since the incident that led to today's judgment and I've yet to hear a redeeming anecdote. Do you believe justice was served today?
"Calling people you don't know vile names?" WTF? So basically you reserve judgement on anybody you haven't met. Are you still on the fence about Hitler? These pricks have been convicted already. Thats not good enough? Go ahead, invite them over, they'll steal your Nintendo Wii.
I've judged you? No, just your first post. I won't even bother to judge your second post; it speaks for itself: What "cycle"? "Douche bag" is an opinion of someone's character? Not "giving crackheads the keys toy your apartment" is a "social defense mechanism"?
No, I don't think justice was served by this settlement. The zoo maintained an inadequate facility for containing the tigers, but got off easy because of the characterization of the victims as bad people. Oznog (post #12) said it quite succinctly.
I believe that justice should be blind - being mauled by a tiger is a horrendous event, and the victims deserved a whole lot more than they settled for. Not because they are good people, but simply because they were victims of the zoo's negligence. How much would it be worth if you, self-described as "basically good to people," had been the victim? Or if it were one of your children? Would you have settled for $450,000, less medical bills and attorney's fees?
The Zoo is most certainly at fault whether or not these guys are indeed douchebags (and I agree that they're getting off relatively easy here and in the court of public opinion as far as the Dhaliwals go), but I'd bet the settlement and the size of it has as much to do with the brothers' particular actions that day as with their "characterization of the victims as bad people" in the eyes of the public--for both of those reasons I can image Geragos wasn't eager to enter court with these guys.
I forgot it was Geragos. Ugly bastard.
Just because justice should be blind, doesn't mean it should be stupid. Justice can look at an entire set of circumstances: evidence these two taunted the animal is certainly a factor in the mauling, and justice must look at the plaintiff's actions just as much as they look at the zoo's negligence.
Obviously, a "good person" would not have taunted the animal, thus if attacked for truly no reason, I think few would begrudge an even bigger settlement.
If this had gone to a full trial, the zoo would have been found negligent, but the award to the Dhaliwals would have quite probably been partially reduced by some percentage because of they helped instigate the attack. I'm sure all of this went into the settlement negotiations. If there was zero evidence of instigation, then zoo still would have settled, but it would have been for much more.
But the fact is that the zoo screwed up. Their enclosure was inadequate and not up to accepted standards. The victims/instigators may be pricks, but it doesn't matter if it happened to be Charles Manson and Hitler who were attacked. The zoo was going to end up paying something, and $900k is likely a small amount compared to what a full trial would have cost them in legal fees, court costs, attorneys' fees and costs to the prevailing party, etc.
Okay, I agree about considering the totality of the circumstances, but what about all the kids who make noises and faces at the animals (taunting), and have been seen throwing things into cages? If the tiger had escaped and mauled a child, what kind of justice would it be to blame the child rather than the inadequate enclosure? My point about justice being blind is that victims of the zoo's negligence deserve fair and adequate compensation, regardless of who they are. It wasn't the taunting that caused the injuries, it was the escaped tiger (not to mention the zoo employee in the restaurant who wouldn't open the door for the brothers to get shelter).
"taunts enclosed animals, drives drunk, impedes a criminal investigation, engages in theft, etc."
That reminds me, it's almost 1pm - time to go drop a couple Jaeger bombs, hop in the car and taunt the penguins!
How much you wanna bet in about a year we'll be reading about some worse crime these guys commit, after they've blown the 900k of taxpayer dollars they got for "free" today?
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that the SF Zoo has been around since the 1930's and in well over 70 years, nobody got killed by anything. Sure, maybe the tiger enclosure was a few feet too small, but how many millions of people - this commenter included - have managed to visit, check out the animals and head home unscathed. Sometimes the obvious gets lost.
These two mental giants will just have to come up with a more creative way to get themselves killed. Hopefully before either one can donate any genetic code to humanity.