Irena Hauser applied to the County of Ventura for a permit allowing her to keep five tigers in her residential backyard near Malibu. After all, what could possibly go wrong? What went wrong in the Court of Appeal was that she was stalked by the presumptions favoring respondents on appeal, formidable beasts in the best of circumstances.

The Court of Appeal began its decision in Hauser v. Ventura County Board of Supervisors by quoting William Blake:

Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry!