Always. Alligators are always wild. Now for the rest of the story.
On May 15, 2014 a divided Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the trial court’s summary judgment in the famous alligator case. Here is the Court’s opinion.
The plaintiffs owned land adjacent to an alligator-infested waste-disposal site owned by Exxon. Apparently, the alligators were running roughshod on the land. The landowners sued Exxon for public nuisance.
The Court’s determination that Exxon deserved summary judgment hinged on its finding that the alligators were “wild.”
Incidentally, I recommend that you consider all alligators as wild. Perhaps justices in the the majority have pet alligators or have seen trained alligators somewhere like the Collins Zoo or at the circus. I have not. Unless it’s the Florida Gator mascot, please stay away from all alligators. At least until you can get a judicial determination of whether the creatures in question are wild.
A prior owner stocked the land with alligators (what an idiot). The majority found that there is no evidence that the current alligators are descendants from the alligators that were originally put on the property.
So I guess the original alligators were run off by the wild band of new alligators that no one knows where they came from? Those alligator turf battles can get ugly, no doubt.
The dissent argued that the gators’ appearance on the land was not a natural occurrence and, therefore, the plaintiffs should be able to proceed with their case.
Justice Lamar wrote for the majority joined by justices Waller, Dickinson, Pierce and Coleman.
Justice Chandler dissented and was joined by justices Randolph, Kitchens and King.
My Take:
It’s a sad day for Mississippi judicial observers and bloggers. An alligator infestation trial would have been dynamite.
If the plaintiffs thought the alligators were bad before, imagine what it will be like when the gators hear that they can “gator it up” with impunity.