ASPCA Settles With Ringling Bros: $9.3 M

[Kathianne]

The rest of the RICO suit goes on:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aspca-pays-93-million-in-landmark-ringling-bros-and-barnum--bailey-circus-settlement-185046751.html



ASPCA Pays $9.3 Million in Landmark Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Settlement Feld Entertainment RICO Lawsuit Will Continue against the Humane Society of the United States, the lawyers, and other remaining defendants

VIENNA, Va., Dec. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Feld Entertainment, Inc., the producer of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® Circus, announced today that the company has reached a legal settlement with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) in connection with two federal court cases. Under the settlement, ASPCA has paid Feld Entertainment $9.3 million to settle all claims related to its part in more than a decade of manufactured litigation that attempted to outlaw elephants in the company's Ringling Bros. ® Circus. This settlement applies only to the ASPCA. Feld Entertainment's legal proceedings, including its claims for litigation abuse and racketeering, will continue against the remaining defendants, Humane Society of the United States, the Fund for Animals, Animal Welfare Institute, Animal Protection Institute United with Born Free USA, Tom Rider and the attorneys involved.


"These defendants attempted to destroy our family-owned business with a hired plaintiff who made statements that the court did not believe. Animal activists have been attacking our family, our company, and our employees for decades because they oppose animals in circuses. This settlement is a vindication not just for the company but also for the dedicated men and women who spend their lives working and caring for all the animals with Ringling Bros. in the face of such targeted, malicious rhetoric," said Kenneth Feld , Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Feld Entertainment.


The parties filed dismissal papers today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia as a result of their settlement. The settlement covers only Feld Entertainment's claims against ASPCA for attorneys' fees and damages in the initial Endangered Species Act (ESA) case filed in 2000 by the animal rights activists and the resultant racketeering (RICO) case brought by Feld Entertainment in 2007. Discovery in the initial lawsuit uncovered over $190,000 that these animal activist groups and their lawyers paid to Tom Rider who lived off of the money while serving as the "injured plaintiff" in the lawsuit against the circus.

...

[Abbey Marie]

Sad.

[Kathianne]

More than sad, more of a con job:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_lawsuit_circus_2qt5F2tVROO52lhmFLpp8I


The lawsuit circus (http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_lawsuit_circus_2qt5F2tVROO52lhmFLpp8I) Animal-rights legal misconduct

By WALTER OLSON
Last Updated: 10:52 PM, January 6, 2013


Visit the online store at ASPCA.org, and you’ll be invited to make a symbolic donation enabling the animal-welfare charity to carry on one of its beloved activities. Give $20, and you symbolically buy antibiotics for an injured animal. Spend $50, and care for a rescued horse; $200, and cover a spay or neuter operation.


There’s no checkoff for “$9.3 million to compensate opponent for litigation abuse.” But maybe there should be.


Last month, the ASPCA agreed to hand over that impressive sum to the owners of the Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey circus after a judge ruled that it could be sued for alleged misconduct during 10 years of litigation against the circus.

...


Last July, the judge let circus owner Feld Entertainment proceed with its countersuit alleging litigation abuse. Now the ASPCA has opted to pay rather than fight that countersuit.


Not so incidentally, the ASPCA (like its rival Humane Society of the United States, which declined to settle and remains a defendant in the countersuit) functions mainly as a national advocacy organization — not a vehicle for supporting local shelters and rescue groups, which are mostly on their own financially. Donors, not all of whom are necessarily aware of that fact, collectively give the ASPCA more than $100 million a year — which leaves the group big enough to weather this setback.


Still, $9.3 million would buy an awful lot of flea collars, and that the group was willing to spend so much to settle suggests it saw a significant potential for liability.


This makes the second time in a month that a high-profile nature “charity” has fallen on its face in the courtroom. Last month, a Maryland federal judge tossed a much-publicized lawsuit filed by Waterkeeper Alliance, the litigation group associated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and popular with Hollywood types, against a family chicken farm on the Eastern Shore.


After Waterkeeper’s local agent had spotted a pile of “biosolids” — that’s a euphemism — out in the open on the farm, the group raced to file a suit claiming Clean Water Alliance violations for which it said Perdue should be liable, because it had contracts with the farm to raise chickens.
Turned out the biosolids weren’t chicken manure after all and were lawfully on the property. The judge proceeded to lambaste Waterkeeper for pressing forward even after the legal and factual shakinessof its case should’ve been clear, with a suit that amounted to little more than a steaming pile of you-know-what.


You might wonder why suing people counts as the sort of charitable endeavor deserving of tax deductibility. Good question. Not until 1970 did the Treasury Department, in response to a big PR campaign, decide that “cause” litigation as an activity deserves charitable status.


Spearheading that PR campaign was none other than the American Bar Association: What more authentic way to express the benevolent spirit of charity, after all, than to create more jobs for lawyers?


Maybe it’s time to reconsider.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Good for Feld. RB has always taken good care of it's animals. I hope similar settlements are now made with all the other groups.