ACTIVIST LAWSUITS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2000:

The California First District Court of Appeals on February 7 affirmed a 1998 trial court ruling that Chinatown markets selling live animals for either on-site or take home slaughter are not breaking state cruelty and health laws. San Francisco attorney Baron Miller, pursuing the case on behalf of the Coalition for Healthy and Humane Business Practices, indicated that he would appeal again, this time to the California Supreme Court.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Frank Wasielewski on January 21 reversed a 1999 libel verdict won by Society of St. Francis president and Animal Lobby founder Cindy Schultz against radio talk show host Charles Sykes and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, but on March 10 rejected their petition to seize and sell Schultz’s Mequon home in satisfaction of a claim against her of nearly $500,000. Wasielewski ordered Schultz to pay $155,797. Schultz held that Sykes wrongfully accused her of stealing a dog whose owner she had accused of neglect.

U.S. Magistrate Lawrence Leavitt on February 14 ordered orangutan trainer Bobby Berosini to return $2 million to the U.S. within 30 days. Jeanne Roush, a longtime PETA board member, alleged that Berosini transfered the funds to a Panamanian land investment firm to avoid paying PETA $200,000 in legal fees, plus interest, awarded in 1996 after the Nevada Supreme Court reversed a defamation judgement Berosini won against PETA in 1990 for alleging that he beat his orangutans backstage.