SPRINGFIELD | A southwest Missouri woman has sued Wal-Mart, local health officials and Cox Health Systems, claiming they discriminated against her and her monkey named Richard.
Debby Rose of Springfield said in the lawsuit that the 10-year-old bonnet macaque helps curb a social anxiety disorder that can cause her to have panic attacks in public.
The suit contends the Springfield-Greene County Health Department lacked the authority to decide that Richard is not a service animal under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Health officials in 2006 sent letters to restaurants and grocery stores, advising them not to let Rose in with the monkey.
Rose also alleges she was denied access to Cox Health Systems facilities.
The three entities declined to comment on the lawsuit.
2 comments:
"The Sonnet of the Bonnet Macaque"
A lady had serious anxiety,
And couldn’t go outside on the streets;
She cut herself off from all society,
And mail-ordered all of her meats.
She got an Old World monkey
That would cling tight to her shoulder;
It never smelled too funky,
And the lady grew much bolder.
Then the mean old government said
That her monkey was not a clean help mate;
It made a ban on monkey-muck
In places where sapiens ate.
She can’t get by without her macaque:
She’s got a monkey on her back.
© 2008
Shakespeare and Marlowe would be so proud....though this is more in the tone of John Donne.
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