S.F. denies financial claim of tiger-attack survivors

Source: S.F. Chronicle

San Francisco officials released documents today indicating the city has denied a claim by two San Jose brothers seeking an unspecified amount of money for compensation after they survived a Christmas Day tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo.

A letter from the city attorney's office dated Thursday states there is "no indication of liability on the part of the city and county," and directs the brothers to file a claim with San Francisco Zoological Society, the nonprofit organization that operates the zoo.

The zoo and its animals are owned by the city of San Francisco.

(snip)

In the claims the brothers filed in March, Los Angeles attorneys Mark Geragos and Shepard Kopp say that Kulbir Dhaliwal, 24, underwent surgery on both knees because of wounds he suffered in the attack. The claim also contends he was deprived of the use of his BMW M3, the car the three victims took to the zoo. Police impounded the car.

(snip)

The Dhaliwals' claims were filed the same day that Paul Dhaliwal was arrested on suspicion of trying to steal two video-game controllers at a Target store in San Leandro. He is also suspected of stealing similar items from a Target store in Livermore and twice from one of the chain's stores in Hayward, police said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/09/BA5F10JT68.DTL&tsp=1

i'm not feeling ANY sympathy for these kids now!

...and I would STILL hope they wind up owning the city.If you have a zoo and your cages are substandard and one your animals eats one guy to death and begins eating two others-WHILE you fuck up the response (you would have to check old threads to read about the response)and then admit that you own the property and the animals, but it ain't your fault,and then hire a public relations firm to smear the partially eaten with a later arrest and "suspicion"??? of prior crimes...Well-spinning like that in the real world causes nausea and in a just world would cause the spinners heads to explode-frankly, if they pulled off the Brink's Job, the Great Train Robbery, and the Itallian Job subsequent to being partially eaten it reflects much more highly on the supposed "scummers" for being ambitious than on the city spokesman (highly paid) for flinging extraneous shit at victims of their own negligence no matter how they acted outside the city-owned enclosure of the city-owned animals.In short, sometimes bad things happen to bad people-and guess what-that alters neither culpability nor liabilty one whit.

and then let a jury decide. I think it could be interesting.

No big payday.

....IF they provoked the tigers into an attack by abusing them, they are owed nothing. Just because they were injured it appears to have been their own fault and therefore any injuries they received were also their fault. So pay for you own injuries guys.

not a fact at this point.

BUT in bigger news, I've GOT to ask about your handle. I'm guessing there's a great story behind it.

Humans? They're Great! :yoiks:

It's hard to believe they will be able to escape liability in court, no matter how much video junk these youths tried to steal.

The zoo's enclosure wasn't properly built, wasn't properly maintained (vegetation allowed the tiger to climb higher and make the leap), and the accrediting agency said the zoo was understaffed for an emergency.

Let's assume that the boys did, as the zoo claims, wave their arms and yell. That doesn't mitigate the zoo's responsibility to ensure that enclosures are built and maintained to standard and that a zoo is properly staffed.

That they had sling shots. If they did and they were shooting at animals then they deserve nothing. Although I feel bad for the tiger than these guys. The zoo should have close circuit cameras to avoid shit like this.

Is their word good enough for you?

(The man quoted below, Geragos, is the lawyer for the brothers.)

http://abcnews.go.com/us/story?id=4072527&page=1

Police today flatly denied a report that the three victims of the Christmas Day tiger mauling at the San Francisco Zoo were carrying slingshots on the day of the attack, which claimed the life of a 17-year-old zoo visitor.


SNIP


"There are some very disturbing facts yet to come out about what happened," Geragos told ABCNews.com. "One of the brothers had absolutely no reason to be attacked. After Carlos was attacked, this brother ran to the zoo café and they would not let him in. The same guys who sold him nachos wouldn't let him back in. They locked the doors. Thirty minutes later, he was attacked by the tiger."

An employee barricaded in the zoo's Terrace Café reportedly made the first 911 calls, saying that one of the brothers was screaming outside. According to police logs obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle, officers were initially skeptical of claims of an attack: "Zoo personnel dispatch now say there are two males whom the zoo thinks are 800 and making something up. But one is in fact bleeding from the back of the head."


According to those logs, firefighters and police officers were forced to wait outside for as long as six minutes by zoo security guards enforcing an emergency lockdown.

Geragos also claims that the zoo's security staff was missing in action. "Has anybody even talked to this woman who was in the security golf cart? She was motoring around in between the first and second attacks. What was she doing?"

SNIP

but no animal should be able to escape a zoo enclosure.

it forces the claimant to either sue or drop the claim

most governmental entities pull the same stunt