By Marisa Kendall, From The Recorder

SAN FRANCISCO — Lawyers with Covington & Burling are part of the latest attack on SeaWorld over allegations that the park mistreats orca whales used in its shows.

A complaint filed Monday in San Francisco Superior Court claims the park duped visitors into buying tickets by falsely portraying its orcas as healthy and stimulated. The company’s website, television commercials and even the SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment Inc. logo misled consumers into thinking the whales thrive in captivity just as they would in the wild, the suit states.

“These claims are misleading if not outright lies,” the lawyers wrote. Without those misrepresentations, the lawyers argue, plaintiffs would not have bought SeaWorld tickets, or would have paid far less.

A SeaWorld spokesman said the park is committed to the health and well-being of its animals.

“The lawsuit appears to be an attempt by animal right extremists to use the courts to advance an anti-zoo agenda,” spokesman Fred Jacobs wrote in an email. “The suit is baseless, filled with inaccuracies, and SeaWorld intends to defend itself against these inaccurate claims.”

San Diego-based SeaWorld has been facing a mounting backlash against its whale shows. After an orca drowned a trainer during a 2010 show in Orlando, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the park for safety violations and recommended ending the spectacle of trainers swimming with the whales. SeaWorld lost its appeal of that decision last year.

The park again came under scrutiny when “Blackfish,” a documentary about the whale involved in the attack, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013. The film also prompted litigation from shareholders who claimed SeaWorld hadn’t disclosed its whales were being mistreated.

Monday’s complaint follows similar claims filed in federal courts in Florida and the Southern District of California. Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro sued the park in California in March, and Gainesville, Fla., lawyer Paul Rothstein sued in Florida earlier this month.

In the San Francisco suit, Covington attacks the public-relations campaign SeaWorld launched in response to “Blackfish.” The lawyers, led by partner Christine Haskett in San Francisco, say the SeaWorld website misled customers into believing captive orcas live just as long as wild orcas. In reality, the lawyers wrote, stress and disease more than double the mortality rates of captive orcas. The lawyers contend bored orcas routinely chew on their metal enclosures and suffer broken teeth, and they are given psychoactive drugs when they fail to adapt to captivity. SeaWorld also falsely claimed it does not separate orca mothers from their calves, the suit states.

“In sum,” the lawyers wrote, “captivity at SeaWorld harms orcas,”

Photo: jamirae/iStockphoto.com

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