A Squirrelly Lawsuit

A woman is suing a Chicago shopping center because a squirrel jumped on her leg in the center's courtyard. The woman got injured while frantically trying to detach the squirrel from her leg. She claims that the mall's parent company knew about this squirrel's behavior because it had previously attacked and harassed(?) other customers. The squirrel could not be located for comment.

I am guessing that the squirrel must have been male because it jumped on her leg. I put a question mark after the harassed word because I do not know if that word should be used when talking about wild animals. If the squirrel did harass the woman would it be sexual harassment? Or maybe sexual assault? Who knows.

Evidently, the woman must think that the mall owns this serial-harassing squirrel to stop its frisky behavior. If a bunch of renegade robins started swooping down on people in the courtroom would it be the responsibility of the shopping center to prevent that behavior too? Where does it stop? What is the shopping center supposed to do about the squirrel? Get a gun and shoot the thing? Then the mall would probably get in trouble with city ordinances about shooting a firearm out in the open. Not to mention being sued by PETA. I suppose that the mall could have tried to capture the squirrel, but that takes time. And if they did capture the perpetrator they would have to move him somewhere else. And what if they captured an innocent squirrel minding his/her own business. The guilty squirrel would still be on the loose waiting for his next victim to come along.

They could have called animal control, but I think animal control only deals with roaming pet dogs and cats and dangerous animals. Squirrels are wild animals and aren't that dangerous (frisky possibly but not dangerous).

This lawsuit is just another example of someone not taking responsibility for herself and abusing the court system just to make a quick buck.