"Book a room near an ice machine when on the road with penguins" and Other Bits of Wise Advice Leading to Lawsuits
Nick Gillespie | September 29, 2008, 7:43pm
At Overlawyered, guest blogger of Crispy on the Outside Baylen Linnekin (yes, that Testicle Festival guy) reports on a bizarre legal case involving a traveling zoo, alligator dander (or something), penguins, and a Hampton Inn:
A Miami area maid is suing her employer, Hampton Inn, in federal court there, claiming she was forced to clean up after hotel guests who defecated and urinated on floors, left feathers strewn about, and emitted allergenic dander. The guests included "Maya the spider monkey, Bob the alligator, Tango the Macaw", and two lemurs, along with their human handlers. The multispecies group all stayed at the Hampton Inn at Miami Airport hotel for about a week while in town as part of a traveling zoo.
Interesting notes about the case include 1) a filing showing a training manual created by Busch Gardens, which had hired the traveling zoo, sensibly suggesting animal handlers "[b]ook a room near an ice machine when on the road with penguins"; and 2) plaintiff Arlin Valdez-Castillo's claim to have been kidnapped and driven to a cemetery by two men who pressured her to drop the lawsuit. (Douglas Hanks, "Traveling zoo at hotel made me sick, maid says", Miami Herald, Sept. 24).
More here.
The moral of the story? There isn't one, I suppose. Or this: Don't just stay at a Holiday Inn Express; work there too.
Junter Klops | September 30, 2008, 3:40pm | #
Ok, so the feces in
this case came from primates, but this merely an anomaly. It hardly compares to the literal mountains of guano that the feathered folk... produce so much of that we can literally mine it. And have you ever been to a beach with thousands of birds? You need an umbrella.
But even in this case, the birds were to blame. Part of the mess was of feathers. Monkeys don't have feathers. And even though penguins and macaws are distant cousins, incidents like this still give all bird-kind a bad name.
So why have you not condemned their actions yet? Are you an avian fundamentalist, living under the delusion that birds can do no wrong and that it is only primates that are capable of destroying the planet with increased CO2 emissions, massive habitat destruction, nuclear missiles, and oil spills? Or are you a crazy peacenik, thinkin that, "hey, we are different and just need to get along anyway. Not cleaning up feathers? Not a problem where I come from, so out of respect for my culture you should not get angry at me."
It doesnt work that way. Photosynthetic organisms obliterated the planet over a billion years ago, unleashing toxic clouds of oxygen gas into the atmosphere and saturating the oceans with it, killing off whole lines of organisms. And, no, I will not clean up your feathers just because you think they are no big deal. I dislike them. This mode of thought is like saying killing your sister is acceptable because she compromised your family's honor. Maybe that is standard practice in your barbaric lands, but do that here and its death row or life in prison.
And now that I have blown the situation completely out of proportion like a Muhammad cartoon or an aquateen hunger force light brite, the world is coming to an end and it is all Baked Penguins fault for not condemning the radicals soon enough, allowing them time and resources to carry out their sinister plans to destroy the universe.
The End
