October 21, 2004

Court says whales and dolphins cannot sue Bush. This is a sad day for the Cetacean Community.
posted by homunculus 20 years ago
  • So long and thanks for all the fish...
  • As an ex-submariner, I familiar with this. (It's actually a touchy subject for me). When a whale or dolphin is pinged, it's done with the express purpose to destroy the animal's eardrums. The guys in sonar think it's cool to watch the the animal flip out. Eventually the animal ends up beached somewhere. It's real shitty. Some of the lower ranking sonar guy don't think it's cool, but that keeps them lower ranking.
  • Oops, second link as suppossed to be The Cetacean Community.
  • It's real shitty. Word. Word times ten thousand.
  • Animals have no rights unless laws grant them. But neither do men. And not always then. To say more seems to lead toward an examination of human cruelty and that is a huge topic.
  • What is it with you, bees? Is there a reason you post gibberish on every thread, or what?
  • You just want your precious +1, don't you? Circle jerks.
  • Now, I mostly keeps me precious tucked within me britches, figuring it ain't for public show -- unlike looser-hafted sonsofbitches, I'm selective when and where I spread my treasures, when I'm intent on private pleasures, my dear Wolof, don't ye know.
  • Hand 1: It's my personal belief that allowing animals to sue would be stupid. Unbelievably stupid. However, I'd be all for it, if they would fill out all the paperwork themselves. And it has to be the same paperwork that we have to fill out. I'll make exceptions for individual animals who are blind, paraplegic, or missing all of their limbs, but otherwise, they had best check the appropriate box and show their ID to the clerk of the court beforehand. Hand 2: It should not be necessary to have the animals sue. Mr. Knickerbocker's point is well made, and more effective and less preposterous methods than lawsuits by non-humans should be started. Besides, it's bad enough that we're polluting the oceans with sound; do we really want to inflict lawyers on them?
  • less preposterous methods than lawsuits by non-humans (not that this affects your other points, but) non-humans are parties to litigation all the time.
  • From Justice Douglas’ dissenting opinion in SIERRA CLUB v. MORTON, 405 U.S. 727 (1972): The critical question of "standing" would be simplified and also put neatly in focus if we fashioned a federal rule that allowed environmental issues to be litigated before federal agencies or federal courts in the name of the inanimate object about to be despoiled, defaced, or invaded by roads and bulldozers and where injury is the subject of public outrage. Contemporary public concern for protecting nature's ecological equilibrium should lead to the conferral of standing upon environmental objects to sue for their own preservation. See Stone, Should Trees Have Standing? - Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects, 45 S. Cal. L. Rev. 450 (1972). This suit would therefore be more properly labeled as Mineral King v. Morton. Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. The corporation sole - a creature of ecclesiastical law - is an acceptable adversary and large fortunes ride on its cases. The ordinary corporation is a "person" for purposes of the adjudicatory processes, whether it represents proprietary, spiritual, aesthetic, or charitable causes. So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes - fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it. Those people who have a meaningful relation to that body of water - whether it be a fisherman, a canoeist, a zoologist, or a logger - must be able to speak for the values which the river represents and which are threatened with destruction.
  • Good points and info,, the quidnunc kid. Yeah, I'm not all that keen on Corporations suing people, either. The corporation as a legal entity is an interesting and useful construct, but it's getting far out of hand. Sadly, I don't have a good solution by any means, so I'm basically just whining, but so be it. Interestingly, I kind of like the idea of ships as legal entities. That would probably last until one sued me for sexual harassment, though.
  • FUUUUUUUUUUCKERS! we're all gonna die.
  • While we have inherent many rights, our only active rights are those that we can defend. Animals have been notoriously lax on both grasping our legal system and defending their rights. Because of this, it is unlikely that they will see legal remedy soon...
  • Anybody interested can find the judge's ruling here. He acknowledges Quidnunc Kid's point about the legal status of ships and corporations, and basically says there's no reason why animals couldn't be given the right to sue--his conclusion is just that congress has not yet given them the right to do so.
  • Yeah, I'm not all that keen on Corporations suing people, either. The corporation as a legal entity is an interesting and useful construct, but it's getting far out of hand. Hard to hold property without being able to enforce legal rights, SandSpider - thus the ability to sue is basically the whole shebang there. Not saying that's a good thing: just that its a big part of your whole capitalist model thingy. I'm with you on the Ships, BTW.
  • there's no reason why animals couldn't be given the right to sue It sounds funny. But you could confer standing on any damn thing, where you have sane adult people to litigate on it's behalf: corporations, ships, the State, infants, severely mentally handicapped persons, the estate of a dead person, the Trustees of a Hospital ...
  • I want to see people who 'ping' cetaceans shot in the head.
  • May I suggest running their eardrums through with chopsticks instead? Much more appropriate.
  • Hard to hold property without being able to enforce legal rights, SandSpider - thus the ability to sue is basically the whole shebang there. With respect to corporations, this issue takes on a little different spin. The legal fiction of the corporation as person is not to enable it to sue to protect "its" rights. Afterall, the rights of the corporation are the rights of the owners of the corporation, and they could sue to enforce their rights. This is done all the time in the context of shareholder derivative suits. The real benefit of the corporation as legal entity is not that it can sue, but rather that it can be sued. In other words, the liability of the owners of the corporation is limited to the investment in the corporation. This limitation on personal liability of owners of corporations facilitates more easily raising capital and reduces the risk of running a business. Similarly, the government can sue inanimate objects, typically in a condemnation or seizure proceeding. This is often done in drug cases where the DEA seizes the dealer's home. You can find cases with names such as "United States v. 500 Smith Street." Of course, where a corporation does have legal standing to sue to protect "its" rights, there is no similar right conferred on inanimate objects. Finally, one important note about this case. Although the court found that there was not explicit statutory authorization of endagered species or marine mammal standing, the court expressly noted that nothing in Article III of the Constitution prohibits such standing. In theory, under the court's interpretation of the Constitution, Congress could do as suggested by Justice Douglas in Sierra Club v. Morton, and confer such standing in a statute.
  • The real benefit of the corporation as legal entity is not that it can sue, but rather that it can be sued... ...in civil proceedings, rather than holding its owners and management criminally liable.
  • Looks like we must all learn to live on toxic wastes or face extinction, the way things are going.
  • a pity whale, did you have to fall in love with that huge dark shape from up above? other whales frisk in the sea and are much safer company.
  • I got a bad feeling about this.
  • So lemme get this right - they're killing whales anyway, but the legality of it matters to them? Those fuckers are shitfaced.
  • Arrr.
  • Wretched bastards.
  • "We are currently engaged in war, in two countries." Take that, Cetaceofascists!
  • I like the part about spraying rotten pie filling with a water cannon. Y'know, for a good cause.
  • The uninvited guest: Chinese sub pops up in middle of U.S. Navy exercise, leaving military chiefs red-faced I assume this means the navy will be cranking up the sonars more than ever, in which case the whales are in even more trouble.
  • So . . what's the deal with China anyway?
  • GO WHALES! #1!
  • I can't stand it, Linus. I just can't stand it.
  • Thank you Whale Jebus!