Should Animals Be Able To Sue Their Owners?
Caged animal Tommy the chimpanzee, kept in a small cage near Gloversville, N.Y. Nonhuman Rights Project Tommy, a chimpanzee in upstate New York has become the first non-human primate to sue its captor, in an effort to become free. But it's not like the chimp actually walked into a courtroom and filed papers himself. Rather, a group of lawyers, led by Steven Wise, filed a suit on behalf of the animal on Dec. 10, as the plaintiff. The complaint: that Tommy was kept in a dank and dark cage within a trailer, unfit for an animal that needs much more space and freedom. A legal move like this was basically unheard of, since animals are considered private property, things without rights of their own. But as detailed in a long and gripping piece in...