Law school hypotheticals come to life: “Wang Han-chin, an electrician in central Taiwan, accused five neighbours of teaching their mynah, a parrot-like bird, to curse at him” with the epithet “clueless big-mouthed idiot” after he called the police on their noise. He claimed that the insults caused him emotional distress and distraction at work with resulting injury, but prosecutors found that he had not shown an adequate link between the bird and his injuries. [NineMSN via Lowering the Bar]
One Comment
Mynahs are not parrot like at all. They’re passerines, songbirds. They’re just really good mimics. So the bird (but not the owners) lacked the requisite intent. On the other hand, parrots CAN put the words in context. For example, when my daughter clicker trained her dog while living in a small apartment, the parrot also learned how to clicker train the dog. For amusement, the parrot mimics a click, calls the dog by name and when the dog appears the parrot rewards the dog with a piece of bird food.