“You know when my client’s chimpanzee ripped your face off? It was on the job, and is therefore a worker’s comp claim. Your argument is invalid”.
An attorney representing the owner of a chimpanzee that mauled and blinded a woman is calling the attack a work-related incident and said her family’s case should be treated like a workers’ compensation claim.
The strategy, if successful, would severely limit potential damages in the case and insulate the chimp owner from personal liability.
The 200-pound chimpanzee named Travis went berserk in February when his owner, Sandra Herold, asked her friend and employee Charla Nash to help lure him back into her house in Stamford. The animal ripped off Nash’s hands, nose, lips and eyelids, and she remains in stable condition at the Cleveland Clinic.
Nash’s family filed a $50 million lawsuit against Herold, saying she was negligent and reckless for lacking the ability to control “a wild animal with violent propensities.”
Due to a pending legal battle with a gang of underage prostitutes vs community action group ACORN, I am unable to take this case at this time, however i will comment that “violent and unspeakably horrible life threatening and disfiguring attacks by a domesticated primate” *was* in fact in the job description listed under “hazards and acknowledged risks” in the alleged “victims” employment in her former role of “friend who stops by the house to say hello from time to time”.