A victory for the owners of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus in a lawsuit over alleged mistreatment of elephants could put a damper on future efforts by animal welfare groups to use the courts and the Endangered Species Act to get companies to improve the living conditions of their animals.
In a settlement announced May 15, the Humane Society of the United States, the nation’s largest animal welfare group, and its co-plaintiffs agreed to pay Virginia-based Feld Entertainment $15.75 million to settle charges that the animal welfare groups had bribed a former circus employee to testify against the franchise owner of the show. The animal welfare groups also agreed to drop their case alleging that Feld had abused elephants in violation of the Endangered Species Act.
The Humane Society was not an original plaintiff in the suit, but was dragged into the litigation after it merged with the Fund for Animals in 2005. The activists never got a chance to make their case against Feld because they were unable to convince either the federal district court in Washington or a federal appeals court that they had standing to sue.
The groups recruited Tom Rider, an elephant keeper for the circus in the late 1990s, to join the suit in the hopes that he would have standing. Rider claimed he suffered emotional injury because Ringling Brothers used chains and bull hooks — metal hooks on poles — to manage the elephants. But neither the D.C. district court nor the federal appeals courts that heard the case ruled Rider’s claim credible.
The district court found the animal welfare groups had paid Rider at least $190,000 for his testimony and that Rider had gone on to use bull hooks at a circus in Europe after leaving Ringling Bros., undermining his claims of emotional harm. The circus, which calls the tool a "guide," says it is used humanely. The city of Los Angeles this month moved to ban the use of bull hooks at circuses starting in 2017, prompting Ringling Bros. to threaten to stop holding shows there.
Feld Entertainment countersued in 2007, arguing that the groups had bribed Rider to testify falsely in order to force it to stop using elephants. Emmet G. Sullivan, a federal district court judge in Washington, allowed the case to proceed two years ago and it was still pending until the settlement this month.
The animal welfare groups say the settlement shouldn’t be seen as a vindication for Ringling Bros. "The court never ruled on the central question of the abuse of circus elephants," says Michael Markarian, president of The Fund for Animals. Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society, said insurance, not supporter donations, would likely cover most of the settlement costs.
Feld, however, says the case should be viewed as a warning to activists who want to use the Endangered Species Act to further their causes. The settlement "marks the first time in U.S. history where a defendant in an Endangered Species Act case was found entitled to recover attorneys’ fees," said John Simpson, a partner with Norton Rose Fulbright’s Washington office who represented the circus.