Woman's sues SIL for $75k over dead snakes; says, 'they mean everything to me.' AITA?
"AITA for suing my sister in law over snakes?"
So, for context I a 21(f) buisness owner. My business is based around reptile education and breeding. I mostly breed pythons, anacondas, and some rat snakes. I love my work and feel incredibly lucky to be able to have this job. So, I had my family over for dinner one night to celebrate my wife’s birthday.
When family comes over I always close the basement door and leave a sign on it letting people know not to go down there unless I or my girlfriend are there.
However, I had to run out to the store because I forgot to get a bag of ice (and my ice maker has been broken for like two years) and while I was gone, my sister-in-law took my two three and five year old nephews into the reptile room so they would have something to do.
While I was gone and my nephews were downstairs they started messing with the cords that controlled all the heating and lighting to the room. This included the heating to the incubator which was packed full with snake eggs (all for that season) which brings in the majority of my revenue.
Before I got back my sister-in-law and nephews came back upstairs for food and I didn’t even know they had been down there. I went to bed right after they left. The first thing I noticed the next morning was that all the automated lights were off because the timer had been turned off. I figured that I must have bumped it until I realized all the timers for lights were off.
Then I checked my incubator and realized something was seriously wrong. The inside of the incubator was WAY too cold. I panicked and checked every single bin and almost all of the eggs had gone bad. There were probably 12-15 that were still good. For comparison the day before, there were 230 good, healthy eggs. I immediately asked my wife if she knew what happened and she didn’t.
So I checked the cameras and clearly saw my sister-in-law and her sons going through the room and messing with the chords. You could clearly see them fully UNPLUG the power strip connected to the incubator. I called her to confront her about it and she told me to, “Calm down.”
These animals mean everything to me. Not only that, as I said, breeding is the majority of my business' profit. So after talking to my wife and trying to talk to my sister in law to no avail, my wife and I found a lawyer and took her to court. During that case, the judge ruled that my sister in law had to reimburse me and my wife for the dead snakes.
But since they hadn’t hatched the judge decided that she would have to pay based off how much I brought in from breeding the previous year which was close to $75,000. My wife and I were resolute in that decision but we have constantly badgered me and my wife telling us we are terrible people for suing our family. So am I the asshole?
Let's see what internet users had to say.
bisexualteabag writes:
NTA, there was adequate signage, camera evidence, and the fact that she waited until you were gone to bring her children down there means she knew good and damn well that she wasn't supposed to be down there.
If this were a retail establishment and she had gone into a room with adequate signage and camera systems where it was employee-only access and proceeded to cause 75,000$ worth of damage every business on the planet would have her arrested and sued into the ground for damages.
Will it make you any family friends? Probably not. Is it (and let me repeat this one more time) seventy-five thousand dollars of damages to your small and extremely delicate business? Yes. You are absolutely NTA. And don't let this woman or her children near your snakes ever again.
rachel1578 writes:
NTA. She should also be forced to pay back any deposits you may have taken to allow customers to lay claim to a snake. Some people spend a pretty penny with good breeders to get a high place in line so they can pick the snake of their choice.
And since they didn’t hatch, you have no idea how much money you really lost of some of those eggs could have had more valuable traits then last year’s brood. Take her for every cent and perhaps let slip that letting some 200 baby snakes die, could see criminal animal abuse and cruelty charges in a criminal court if she’s getting to testy about paying you.
professionallock247 writes:
ESH. The judge should have ruled that you were at least partially negligent for leaving your door unlocked to something so important. Put a code lock on there it costs like $150.