Eugene Scalia will argue SeaWorld’s case against OSHA

[Beringia]

by David Kirby
July 31, 2013

SeaWorld has just pulled out a big legal gun in its ongoing fight against the Obama Administration over trainer safety at the company’s three killer whale stadiums.

Eugene Scalia, the son of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, once described as “an absolute bulldog” and Wall Street’s “secret weapon,” will argue SeaWorld’s case against the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) before the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. in a battle that began with the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau, killed by the orca Tilikum at SeaWorld Orlando in 2010.

The news was first reported by Mike De Forest at WKMG TV in Orlando. The younger Scalia is a partner in the “powerhouse” L.A. law firm Dunn & Crutcher, and was once the top Labor Department attorney under George W. Bush, making him a formidable opponent for the OSHA.

Dunn & Crutcher has long had a conservative, pro-business, pro-GOP slant to its corporate culture, and is currently controlled by the Blackstone Group, whose cofounder Stephen Schwarzman was a top contributor to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and notoriously compared Obama’s economic policies to those of Adolph Hitler.

SeaWorld needs all the legal firepower it can muster. It has fought the Administration four times over trainer safety, and lost. With Eugene Scalia it is going for round five.

In August of 2010, OSHA hit SeaWorld with a “willful” violation in the Brancheau case, charging that the marine theme park should never have allowed any trainer to come in close contact with Tilikum, as he was already associated with the deaths of two people.

At issue was whether trainers should be barred from swimming in the water with killer whales, performing tricks with them, or being in close proximity to the whales while onstage poolside or in the slideout areas where trainers often hug, kiss, and cuddle the ocean’s top predators.

full article
http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/07/31/seaworld-osha-lawsuit-scalia

[onehandle]

1. Family of anti-American worker jackasses. nt