Two South Carolina parents filed a suit against Sea World in Orlando after the death of their son, Daniel, who died in a whale tank at the theme park in July. Patricia and Michael Dukes are suing on two counts of liability, one of negligence and one of misrepresentation that claims Sea World gave the killer whale an inaccurate image. The parents are looking in the wrong place for someone to blame. Although they argue that the portrayal of the whale ultimately killed their son, it was not the park that made the decision for Dukes to get into the tank.
“A fellow trespasses on our property, evades our security, scales two very clear barriers and takes off his clothes and jumps into 50-degree water with an 11,000-pound killer whale,” said Vic Abbey, Sea World general manager.
Essentially, the misrepresentation charge comes down to who said what. Abbey said Sea World accurately portrays the whales as being the top predators in the wild, whereas the Dukes’ attorney, Patricia Sigman, said the whales are portrayed as “huggable, kissable (and) human-loving.”
It is foolish for the Dukes to pursue this case. They should be more worried about what actually happened to their son and why it occurred. They are merely trying to transfer the blame away from their son for his tragic death. Although killer whales are a legitimate threat, in this case it was not the whale that was at fault, it was their son’s recklessness.