A woman is suing Malibu Wines for injuries she says she sustained in an attack by a water buffalo. Photo from Pixabay.
A woman is suing Malibu Wines for injuries she says she received after she was allegedly encouraged by an employee to pet a water buffalo, only to be injured when the animal used its horns to attack the plaintiff in 2016.
Simone Fee’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit states that the incident occurred at the Malibu Wine Safari that is associated with the winery.
“As part of the wine/safari tour, defendants … transported guests to a location at their property where the defendants maintain several animals,” according to the negligence complaint filed Thursday.
In addition to the water buffalo, other animals include zebras, llamas, emus and birds, the suit states.
Fee seeks unspecified damages.
A Malibu Wines representative did not immediately reply to a call for comment.
According to the lawsuit, Fee and a friend took the safari tour on Feb. 13, 2016. The water buffalo’s pen was made of “widely spaced, horizontal wood and faux wood panels,” the suit states.
In some areas of the pen there was a double fence and in other parts a single fence, the suit states.
The tour guide for Fee and her companion talked to both about the water buffalo’s hair and encouraged both to touch the animal’s head, the suit states. Fee’s companion did so first, but when Fee tried to do the same the animal “suddenly rammed plaintiff with its head, pushing its horns through the single fence, making violent contact with plaintiff and ultimately locking horns with plaintiff’s chest,” according to the lawsuit.
The water buffalo’s horns pierced Fee’s shirt and lacerated her chest, while simultaneously pinning her between the fence and a metal pole, the suit states.
As the animal tried to extract its horns from Fee’s chest, the plaintiff was “repeatedly smashed against its fence,” the suit states.
The force of the creature shaking its head ultimately caused Fee to be knocked backward and fall to the ground, according to her complaint.
Malibu Wines employees had an obligation to warn guests of the dangers of a water buffalo because they are “wild, savage and vicious in nature,” the suit states. Instead, the tour guide encouraged Fee and her companion to pet the animal, the suit states.
–City News Service
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