Pat Murphy, The Daily Record Newswire
The horrific story of the Massachusetts woman who lost her face and hands in an attack by a friend’s chimpanzee has gone a long way in bursting the myth of the chimp as harmless clown of the animal kingdom.
That attack occurred in February 2009, but just months earlier a college intern lost her thumb in a less-publicized attack by a chimpanzee at an exotic animal sanctuary in Oregon. Wednesday, the Oregon Court of Appeals put an end to the intern’s personal injury suit.
The lawsuit was against Chimps, Inc., a non-profit corporation which operates a sanctuary for chimpanzees and big cats rescued from roadside zoos and private owners. The sanctuary is located on a horse ranch near Bend, Ore. The ranch is owned by Lesley Day, president of Chimps, Inc. The renowned Dr. Jane Goodall happens to be on the organization’s advisory board.
The sanctuary offers an unpaid internship program for those interested in careers in animal conservation. In 2008, one of the interns at the sanctuary happened to be Kristen Howard, a college student studying anthropology.
Ten days after arriving at the sanctuary, Howard and another intern were assigned to clean out an unoccupied cage. Unfortunately, the cage was connected by a system of overhead tunnels to other areas of the compound that were occupied by chimpanzees, including one by the name of Kimie.
The doors to the tunnels were supposed to be locked so that Howard could clean the cage in safety. As luck would have it, on this occasion the doors were not secured properly and for some reason Kimie reacted aggressively when she saw Howard at work.
Kimie entered the cage through one of the connecting tunnels, jumped on Howard’s back, and began biting the college student. Kimie managed to bite off Howard’s left thumb before fleeing the cage.
As Howard left the cage to get medical assistance, Kimie saw her and attacked a second time. Howard was eventually able to find refuge in the sanctuary’s intern’s residence. One of Howard’s fellow interns called 911 to get her medical help.
As incredible as it may seem, the intern’s 911 call was a no-no under the sanctuary’s operational policies. Chimps Inc.’s training manual expressly provides that only the sanctuary’s managers are permitted to call 911, and only in the event of life-threatening situations.
In the ensuing lawsuit, the sanctuary’s president, Leslie Day, acknowledged that the restriction on calling 911 was intended to avoid “receiv[ing] any unnecessary scrutiny over safety concerns.” Obviously, the sanctuary was sensitive to its history of chimp attacks.
One unfortunate aspect of the animal rights movement is that its members often seem to have a cold indifference to the welfare of fellow humans. It could be said that Chimp’s Inc.’s 911 policy is evidence of this phenomena.
It also doesn’t help that, when EMS arrived to treat Howard for her wounds, Day allegedly approached her and said, “Who called 911? It’s just your thumb.”
Of course, Howard’s lawyers were going to play these facts up to the hilt when Howard sued Chimps, Inc. for negligence.
But the sanctuary had an ace up its sleeve. Before starting her internship, Howard signed a waiver releasing Chimps, Inc. from liability for “all claims for death, personal injury, or property damage” arising out of her participation at the sanctuary, including liability arising from negligence or carelessness.
A state judge granted the sanctuary summary judgment on the basis of the release, and this week the Oregon Court of Appeals agreed that the release was enforceable.
Howard argued on appeal that the release could not be enforced because Chimps Inc. reserved in its work manual the right to change its terms at any time.
But the court of appeals rejected the notion that the release was unenforceable because it involved illusory promises:
We need not decide whether – as plaintiff contends – no mutuality of obligation existed at the moment the parties signed the contract, before either of them had performed. … Because defendant gave plaintiff consideration by allowing her onto the sanctuary, and plaintiff signed the release in exchange, the parties had a binding agreement.
In upholding the release, the court further rejected Howard’s contention that the release did not bar her claim for gross negligence, which she based on the fact that the sanctuary had a history of chimp attacks. The court explained that no reasonable juror could find that Chimp Inc.’s gross negligence caused Howard’s injuries, pointing out that the sanctuary’s history consisted of three serious attacks that occurred very early in its history:
“Significantly — at least so far as the record reflects — none of the incidents resulted from a tunnel door having been left unlocked or from any other circumstance analogous to those that led to plaintiff’s injuries. In other words, even if some of defendant’s actions might reasonably be viewed as reflecting a general indifference to safety (like defendant’s policy against calling 911), no evidence connects those acts to the injuries that plaintiff suffered here.”
