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KANSAS CITY, KAN. (AP) -- Five years after a monkey hurt a child at a birthday party in Kansas City, Kansas, the legal battle is still going on.

Those involved disagree over whether the little monkey named Wyatt bit an 11-year-old boy twice or just scratched him. The boy underwent rabies shots until tests on the monkey confirmed he did not have the fatal disease.

This week, Ron Aryel, the former Johnson County public health officer who ordered that the monkey be euthanized, filed a malicious prosecution lawsuit against the monkey's owner, Debbie Barnett.

Barnett had sued Aryel in 2005 in Miami County District Court.

That lawsuit was dismissed last summer.

Aryel's lawsuit seeks compensation for his attorney's costs, damage to his reputation and emotional distress.

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