The case of the day is Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. ex rel. Beulah et al. v. R.W. Commerford & Sons, Inc. (Conn. Super. Ct. 2017). I wrote a polemic about the case back in November 2017. The case was a petition for habeas corpus brought by Steven Wise’s group, the Nonhuman Rights Project, on behalf……

I wrote back in 2015 about the Monkey Selfie case. As the name suggests, a monkey took a selfie using a camera that a nature photographer set up in the monkey’s forest. PETA then brought a lawsuit against the photographer, alleging, supposedly on behalf of the monkey, that the monkey owned the copyright to the……

At the bitter end of the Monkey Selfie case, I pointed out that the “animals are people” genre of animal rights litigation isn’t just a feel-good resume builder for bright 2Ls in the animal rights clinic. It has real victims. In the Monkey Selfie case, the victim was David Slater, the photographer, who went broke……

The Monkey Selfie case has come to a depressing and cynical end. The case had to do with a photograph of an Indonesian monkey. David Slater, a professional photographer, set up a camera on a tripod in the monkey’s habitat and left the camera’s remote trigger near the camera. One monkey, Naruto, picked up the……

When I was a law clerk, a lawyer filed a civil rights action in my judge’s court (the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio) against an Ohio municipality, several police officers, and Lieutenant Bars. When I read the complaint, I was momentarily confused. Who was Lieutenant Bars? Why, the police dog, of……