Child Injured After Falling Into Rhino Exhibit at Florida Zoo

January 1, 2019, a 2-year-old girl fell into a rhinoceros exhibit at a zoo in Melbourne FL. The article stated that the child fell between the bars separating visitors from the “Rhinos Encounter” Exhibit.

The girl was taken to a hospital as she was injured, possibly made contact with the rhinos, and from what the article states is doing better. This does bring up a good question though; how safe do guardrails have to be when wild animals are involved? Who is at fault here? The zoo or the parents? Finally, if you find yourself in a situation such as this what can you do?

In Florida, the premise liability laws are friendlier to the injured party as opposed to many other states. When there are privately owned places that are opened to the public, such as this zoo, the zoo must maintain the premises safe of dangerous conditions they knew or should have known about. They either must make these conditions safe or at the very least must warn the people entering the property about these dangers. In this specific case, we can only speculate as we do not know any of the facts. However, if that zoo knew or should have known a child could fit thru those bars they should have either fixed the bars or put up some sort of warning about them.

Then we have to move on to the rhino, which may have come in contact with the child. Rhinos are clearly dangerous animals and in Florida, that means that if you keep one you are liable for basically any injuries caused by it. This means even if there were warnings about the guardrail being big enough for a child to fit through the zoo may still be liable for the damage actually caused by the rhino. But again, this is all speculation as we do not have many facts to go on.

If you are injured either on someone’s property or because of a dangerous animal that person owns, please do not hesitate to call us and we will help you get thru this difficult time.

Read the full article here.