Swiss Court Orders Mass Slaughter of Innocent Chocolate Bunnies

I went downstairs, outside. I crept up into the barn. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to. Bunnies. The chocolate bunnies were screaming. First I tried to free them. I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn't run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn’t run. I took one chocolate bunny, and I ran away as fast as I could. I didn't have any food, any water, and it was very cold, very cold. I thought … I thought if I could save just one, but ... he was so heavy. So heavy. I didn’t get more than a few miles when the sheriff’s car picked me up. The rancher was so angry he sent me to live at the Lutheran orphanage in Bozeman. I never saw the ranch again.

And what became of the chocolate bunny?

He was destroyed under order from a Swiss court.

Yes, chocolate maker Lindt & Sprüngli is enjoying a legal victory after Switzerland’s highest court ruled on Thursday that its signature foil-wrapped chocolate bunnies deserve protection from copycat products, notably one made by discount retailer chain Lidl. The federal court ordered Lidl to immediately stop selling its own tinfoil-wrapped chocolate bunny, and to destroy its remaining stock. The ruling is breathtaking in its cruelty, and it overturned one made last year, against Lindt, by a commercial court.

To convince the court to force the mass destruction of Lidl’s chocolate bunnies, Lindt submitted surveys of the public that showed its chocolate bunny was well known, and that it could easily be confused with Lidl’s, even though the products have a few key differences (Lindt’s has a kicky little scarf). This convinced the court, which said in a summary of its verdict that the murder of Lidl’s stock of chocolate bunnies was “proportionate, especially as it does not necessarily mean that the chocolate as such would have to be destroyed.” By this they mean that the bodies of these precious chocolate bunnies — formed in Chocolate Bunny God’s own image — could potentially be melted down and reused for something non-bunny related.

Horrific. Barbarous. Cruel.

You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the chocolate bunnies.

Yes …