Portland — A Portland man filed a $55,000 lawsuit Monday against a Sandy slaughterhouse — claiming he suffered a huge gash to his leg after workers botched the killing of a water buffalo he’d arranged to be butchered.
Vue Moua’s lawsuit claims that employees at Malco’s Buxton Meats “caused boiling hot water to be thrown on the live buffalo” to force the buffalo into a “killing cage” in September 2014. The employees then shot the buffalo four times in the head, the suit alleges.
Moua was injured after the buffalo became entangled on the ramp and employees asked for Moua’s help to move the animal, the suit states. They assured him the buffalo was dead, according to the suit.
“However, once plaintiff began pushing the buffalo, the buffalo sprung up and in the process struck plaintiff’s right calf with its hoof causing plaintiff (to suffer) a huge gash in his leg,” the suit states.
Malco’s Buxton Meats owner Gene Malkovsky told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the circumstances in the suit are “totally false.”
Malkovsky said boiling water wasn’t poured on the buffalo — nor would his staff do such a thing.
He said a “special rifle” might be used to put down an animal.
“We try to make sure that when the animal goes down, it goes down humanely, without any suffering,” Malkovsky said. “It’s very important for us. … That’s a big thing.”
Malkovsky said there are controls to make sure animals aren’t killed in the way Moua’s suit describes. He said an inspector with the U.S. Department of Agriculture is on site five days a week, during all hours of operation.
Malkovsky said Moua did get kicked by the buffalo’s leg, but that the kicking motion was a reflex from an animal that was already dead.
Moua posted a photo Facebook of his bleeding leg on Sept. 13, 2014.
Moua wrote that the buffalo “was dead” and didn’t move for eight minutes. Moua wrote that when he started to push “it started to move.”
Malkovsky said Moua wasn’t supposed to be in the area of the business where animals are killed.
The suit seeks $5,000 in “unreimbursed past and future medical expenses” and $50,000 for Moua’s pain and suffering. The suit states that his wound became infected and he now has a scar.
According to a USDA document, the company’s operations were suspended for one day — Aug. 21, 2014 — for “inhumane treatment/slaughter.” The suspension came less than a month before the incident alleged in Moua’s lawsuit.
