Photo: David Slater
It`s the copyright lawsuit that refuses to die. In September 2017, PETA finally settled its monkey selfie lawsuit with photographer David Slater, ending years of financially destructive litigation. However, a request to dismiss the case has since been rejected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which points out in a newly published order that it`s not required to honor the dismissal request.
The decision to proceed with a ruling appears to be the Ninth Circuit`s way of preventing PETA from dodging a legal outcome that would interfere with potential future litigation of a similar nature. The Court`s order states, in part, that:
...denying the motion to dismiss and declining to vacate the lower court judgement prevents the parties from manipulating precedent in a way that suits their institutional preferences.
The Ninth Circuit further narrows down the thought process behind continuing the lawsuit, stating in the order:
As one of our colleagues once warned in a similar context, `courts must be particularly wary of abetting `strategic behavior´ on the part of institutional litigants whose continuing interest in the development in the law may transcend their immediate interest in the outcome of a particular case.`
PETA`s settlement was anticipated last year after signs surfaced indicating the courts weren`t in the organization`s favor. In July 2017, for example, PETA`s attorney faced a series of questions from judges including whether the organization`s relationship with the monkey was of the nature that it could sue on the animal`s behalf. Before that, a federal judge in San Francisco found that the monkey doesn`t have legal standing to sue.
By settling-assuming the case were dismissed and a lower court`s judgement vacated-PETA could dodge a ruling that it may not like; a ruling that could establish a precedent that would prevent it from filing similar lawsuits on the behalf of animals in the future. The Ninth Circui ...
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