When eight acrobats suspended high above the ground at a performance in Rhode Island suddenly came crashing down in May 2014, gasps and screams ripped through the crowd of spectators. “That was an amount that everyone on our side thought was the right amount, it was a fair amount and it was the just amount, in our opinion,” the lawyer, Zachary M. Mandell, said in an interview. All nine were taken to a hospital, according to a statement from Feld Entertainment, which owned the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus. 