## Facts

- A 4-year-old child attended a circus operated by defendants and, after the main performance, went with his parents to an animal tent.
- A chimpanzee was kept in a wagon cage with vertical iron bars spaced about three inches apart, without mesh wire to prevent the animal from reaching outside the cage.
- The wagons were set back from a rope or chain barrier; there was no lower fence to block small children and no guard near the chimpanzee’s cage.
- A crowd gathered along the rope, and some patrons reached over the rope to feed peanuts to the chimpanzee.
- The child was set down by his father, moved through the crowd, went under the rope to the cage, and offered a peanut; the chimpanzee reached through the bars, grabbed the child’s hand, and bit him.

## Issues

1. Whether allowing defense counsel to use a “jury book” containing juror background information and perceived voting tendencies deprived plaintiff of a fair and impartial jury trial.
2. Whether the trial court gave prejudicially erroneous instructions by framing liability in terms of the child’s or father’s contributory negligence rather than the standard governing injuries caused by a wild animal.

## Decision

- The court found no reversible error in permitting the use of the jury book during jury selection absent a showing of actual prejudice or statutory violation.
- The court held the jury instructions on liability were erroneous and prejudicial because they directed jurors to deny recovery based on the conduct of the child or his father rather than the proper rule for wild animals.
- The judgment for defendants was reversed and the matter remanded for a new trial.
- The attempted appeal from the order denying a new trial did not provide independent relief; reversal of the judgment controlled the disposition.

## Legal Principles

- A party challenging jury-selection practices must show prejudice or a violation of governing law; use of lawfully obtained juror information for peremptory challenges is not reversible error by itself.
- Keepers of wild animals (*ferae naturae*) are subject to strict-liability principles for injuries caused by such animals’ dangerous propensities.
- In wild-animal cases, ordinary contributory negligence concepts should not be presented as the central bar to recovery; the key defense is whether the injured person knowingly and voluntarily assumed the risk (i.e., knowingly invited the injury).
- Jury instructions that misstate the governing liability standard and divert the jury to improper fault-based questions on a dispositive issue constitute prejudicial error requiring reversal.

## Conclusion

The appellate court ordered a new trial because the jury was improperly instructed to treat the child’s or father’s conduct as a bar to recovery, when the proper focus for injury caused by a wild animal was whether the injured party knowingly and voluntarily assumed the risk; the separate challenge to the defense’s use of a juror-information “jury book” did not warrant reversal.


Baugh v. Beatty, 91 Cal. App. 2d 786, 205 P.2d 671 (Cal. Ct. App. 1949)