A Utah judge has awarded nearly $2 million to the family of an 11-year-old boy who was mauled to death by a bear but the verdict won't necessarily make it much easier for plaintiffs to hold wildife officials liable for animal attacks.

Samuel Ives

The black bear that attacked Samuel Ives during a weekend camping trip on June 17, 2007 had struck another camper earlier the same day. After eluding a pursuit by state wildlife agents, it returned after dark to the same campsite in American Fork Canyon and ripped Samuel from his tent.

In what he called a “heart-wrenching” case, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball found the U.S. Forest Service liable for failing to warn the Ives family of the prior bear attack on Jake Francom or close the campground, saying it was foreseeable that the bear “would return to the campsite where it had earlier attacked campers and had found food.”

He singled out Carolyn Gosse, a Forest Service law enforcement officer who, after being notified of the earlier attack, told the dispatcher that she was not on duty and that it would be impossible to find someone to watch her children on a Sunday.

Gosse's supervisor “credibly” testified, Kimball said, “that if Ms. Gosse had told him about the Francom bear attack, he would have immediately responded by going to the area and warning campers in and around the Francom campsite (as well as people in the Timpooneke Campground) about the dangerous bear.”

The decision awarding $1.95 million to Sam's parents is a rare victory for plaintiffs in a wild animal attack lawsuit. Courts have usually dismissed similar cases against government officials under an immunity that applies to “discretionary” decisions.

But the Ives case may not help other plaintiffs since it is so fact-specific. “The ruling here,” Kimball cautioned,

is limited to a situation where (1) there had been an aggressive bear encounter at the identical site where Plaintiffs set up camp; (2) the encounter had been approximately twelve hours before Plaintiffs arrived; and (3) it would not have been onerous for Defendant to have warned Plaintiffs about the earlier attack.

Samuel Ives’s death is the only recorded fatality caused by a black bear in Utah history. Earlier on the day of the attack, the bear had rummaged through food coolers at the campground and slashed open Francom's tent before being chased away by Francom and his friends.

The campers reported the attack on their way out of the canyon and officers with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) spent four to six hours looking for the bear. They classified it as a Level III nuisance animal, meaning they considered it a “threat to human safety.”

During a bench trial before Kimball, lawyers for the Forest Service argued that Sam's mother, Rebecca Ives, was intoxicated the night of the attack, which could have resulted in a messy campsite that attracted the bear to its victim.

Ives said she drank only a 22-ounce beer and Kimball concluded that “any alcohol consumption by Ms. Ives did not affect the events that occurred that night.”

The judge found the Forest Service 65 percent responsible for a total award of $3 million, the DWR 25 percent responsible, and the Ives family 10 percent responsible, noting there was food in the family's tent that might have attracted the bear.

Rebecca Ives and Sam's father, Kevan Francis, have a separate suit pending against the DWR. Under Kimball's formula, it would be liable for $750,000 in damages.

By Matthew Heller
5/6/11