Frivolous lit­i­ga­tion is alive, well, and as ludi­crous as ever.

Warning: area near bot­tlenose dol­phin exhibit may be…

Correct, most peo­ple would assume that the area around the per­form­ing bot­tlenose dol­phin exhibit to be wet. Zoogoer Allecyn Edwards, how­ever, is not one of these peo­ple. Edwards filed a $50,000 law­suit against the Brookfield Zoo on Aug. 20 for a slip and fall she took near the tank in August of 2008.

More ridicu­lous than the fil­ing of the law­suit itself is the detailed claim of the suit. In the claim, Edwards says the zoo, “reck­lessly and will­fully trained and encour­aged the dol­phins to throw water at the stands mak­ing the floor wet and slippery.”

If you are already scratch­ing your head at this point I would urge you to stop, as her the claim gets even more inane.

Edwards fur­ther asserts that the zoo, “failed to pro­vide warn­ings of the slip­pery floor,” and “failed to pro­vide mats when the staff knew that the floor would get wet and slippery.”

Under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, I think Edwards’ claim does “hold water.”

Edwards must have never before been to or even heard men­tion of an attrac­tion like this in her past expe­ri­ences. She also must have had no idea that in places like zoos or those akin to Sea World it is com­mon for guests arrive early to shows of this nature to get the seats near­est to the tank for the spe­cific pur­pose of hav­ing the ani­mals splash water on them. Edwards must also be unfa­mil­iar with the nature of water and how it has the ten­dency to reduce fric­tion between two sur­faces, which may then increase the risk of slipping.

Is per­sonal lia­bil­ity for one’s own actions com­pletely a thing of the past? Perhaps it is no longer the respon­si­bil­ity for indi­vid­u­als to assess assumed risks when going about their daily activ­i­ties. It must be that the owner of one’s instan­ta­neous where­abouts is account­able for that person’s well being.

Instances of friv­o­lous lit­i­ga­tion may make great water-cooler con­ver­sa­tion, but they may also make huge dents in the check­books of the defen­dants involved.

It’s easy to be reminded of that McDonalds cof­fee law­suit in 1994, when a woman named Stella Liebeck sued the com­pany after spilling hot cof­fee on her lap.

The evi­dence pre­sented dur­ing the trial con­vinced the jury that, despite already hav­ing a label present on the cup, the tem­per­a­ture of the cof­fee was unrea­son­ably high and that McDonalds would have to cough up some “McDough” to cover Liebeck’s med­ical costs.

Liebeck suf­fered third degree burns over 6 per­cent of her body after the scald­ing 190° F “McCoffee” spilled onto her lap. The jury in the trial, after being pre­sented with a book­let of over 700 pre­vi­ously filed com­plaints to the cor­po­ra­tion about the tem­per­a­ture that the cof­fee, awarded Liebeck the ini­tial amount of $2.86 mil­lion dol­lars. It is rumored that this amount was the approx­i­mate rev­enue McDonalds receives for two days worth of cof­fee. Ultimately, this amount was low­ered by a judge to $640,000. In the end though, Liebeck ended up set­tling out of court with McDonalds for some undis­closed amount.

Unlike bring­ing suit against a multibillion-dollar cor­po­ra­tion for cof­fee so hot that spilling it on one’s self incurs third degree burns and hos­pi­tal treat­ment includ­ing skin grafts, Edwards is suing a zoo and the orga­ni­za­tion that man­ages it.

The Chicago Zoological Society (CZS), unlike some omi­nous cor­po­rate giant, ded­i­cates its efforts to “inspire con­ser­va­tion lead­er­ship by con­nect­ing peo­ple with wildlife and nature,” accord­ing to their website.

The CZS is well known for sup­port­ing con­ser­va­tion efforts and research around the globe. The orga­ni­za­tion also funds and orga­nizes The Center for Conservation Leaders. The cen­ter orga­nizes out­reach pro­grams that do every­thing rang­ing from sci­en­tific dis­cov­ery pro­grams for tod­dlers, vol­un­teer intern­ships for col­lege and high school stu­dents, to pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment pro­grams for envi­ron­men­tally minded researchers and edu­ca­tors.
Edwards is fil­ing the $50,000 suit in Illois’ Circuit Court in Cook County for lost wages, med­ical expenses and the “emo­tional trauma” she suf­fered at the tyran­ni­cal fins of the bot­tlenose dol­phins and due to the zoo’s alleged negligence.

I am not against hold­ing cor­po­ra­tions account­able when they are neg­li­gent but with cer­tain activ­i­ties there is assumed some per­sonal risk. Individuals are respon­si­ble for assess­ing this risk and act­ing as they feel would be best for their per­sonal safety. Steps becom­ing wet and slip­pery is a pre­dictable and rea­son­able result of a dol­phin show at a zoo. I can only hope that if this goes to trial a jury awards this woman noth­ing but the sug­ges­tion to watch her step and get some com­mon sense.