Court: Bears 'equal opportunity maulers'

A marijuana-smoking employee who was mauled at a grizzly bear park in 2007 is entitled to workman's compensation benefits, the Montana Supreme Court upheld last week.

The court affirmed an earlier state Workman's Compensation Court ruling that established Brock Hopkins was an employee of the Great Bear Adventure Park in Coram, despite claims by its owner, Russ Kilpatrick, that Hopkins was a "volunteer," even though he regularly paid him cash.

The mauling case is an interesting tale.

On Nov. 2, 2007, Hopkins went to work at the Great Bear Adventures Park. The park at the time displayed two European brown bears for public viewing. The bears were behind an electric fence and motorists drove through the park to look at them.

"Your car is your cage!" a sign out front declared.

Hopkins said he smoked marijuana before he arrived at the bear park. When he got there, he put the pipe in his pants pocket and then went to work. Hopkins claimed that Kilpatrick wanted him to raise the boards on the bear park's gates to keep them from freezing to the ground.

Kilpatrick claimed he asked Hopkins to do the work as a favor.

Hopkins worked on the gates a couple of hours and then went to Kilpatrick's house. Kilpatrick was asleep on the couch. According to court documents, Hopkins said he did not recall Kilpatrick telling him to not feed the bears, so he fed them.

Before he went in the bear pen, he took the marijuana pipe out of his pocket and put it in a storage shed outside the bear pen.

Hopkins then fed the bears. According to court documents, the largest bear, named Red, attacked him.

It knocked him to the ground, sat on him and bit his leg, knee and rear-end. The other bear, named Brodie, came up from behind and bit Red.

Red then moved off Hopkins and Hopkins escaped the pen by crawling under the electric fence that kept the bears contained. Hopkins suffered severe injuries.

Prior to this incident, Hopkins was bitten by a bear at the park in 2004.

Hopkins later filed a workman's compensation claim against Kilpatrick. The compensation court found that Hopkins was an employee, despite Kilpatrick's claim that Hopkins was a "volunteer." Kilpatrick then appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

But the Supreme Court concurred with the lower court, noting the worker's comp court had it right when it determined that "there is a term used to describe the regular exchange of money for favor - it is called employment."

The Supreme Court, like the lower court, also determined that Hopkins use of marijuana, while "mind-boggling stupid," was not a contributing factor in his mauling.

The worker's comp court found that grizzlies are "equal opportunity maulers," and there was no direct evidence that Hopkins' use of marijuana was a major contributing factor in Hopkins' injuries. The Supreme Court also concurred.

After the incident, Kilpatrick euthanized the bears. He now advertises only black bears at the park.