Ringling Brothers Gets $16 Million in 'Vexatious' Animal Rights Blowback

At the Wall Street Journal, "Lawsuit Losers Pay" (via Google):

Animal-rights groups that made phony claims of abused circus elephants continue to pay for their bogus litigation. On Thursday Feld Entertainment, owner of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, announced a legal settlement under which it received $15.75 million from the Humane Society of the United States and other animal-rights groups. This follows a 2012 agreement by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to surrender $9.3 million to the producer of family-friendly entertainment.

The activist groups aren't settling out of a spirit of generosity. They're paying up because Feld exposed their payments to a former circus employee who offered false testimony. And as Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia noted last year, "the plaintiffs were unable to produce any credible evidence that any of them had standing to pursue their claims." He called their lawsuit "frivolous, unreasonable and groundless" and ordered them to pay Feld's attorneys fees. Total settlements of roughly $25 million now cover the costs of a defense that began in 2000 when the activists first lobbed their spurious claims...

Now that is the way to do it --- punch back twice as hard.

Also from Michael Rubin, at Commentary, "Dishonesty Has Cost for Radical Animal Activists":

The U.S. District Court ruled that the Humane Society’s case was “frivolous,” “vexatious,” and “groundless and unreasonable from its inception.” The settlement also covered a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case that Feld Entertainment had filed after they discovered that the Humane Society and co-complainants had paid a witness and then tried to cover that up.

Dishonesty. The calling card of the radical left.