Equine Law Blog
Do you understand what equine-related liability insurance policies do? Many people in the horse industry learn the shortcomings of their liability insurance policies after something goes wrong.
To gain a better understanding of how these policies work, here are examples of some occurrences:
Is every legal dispute appropriate for a lawsuit? Not necessarily. Sometimes the dispute can be resolved quickly and amicably – as long as the parties are willing to consider an alternative to the legal system such as arbitration or mediation.
You allowed someone to ride your horse, but the worst-case scenario later came true – your friend fell off and was injured. Certainly, the immediate response is to make sure that your friend received proper medical attention and that your friend is safe. But can your words, made after the fact, form a basis for liability? Sometimes they can. In a recent case from New Jersey, in fact, they did.
A few years ago, some valuable breeding stallions contracted Contagious Equine Metritis (“CEM”), an equine venereal disease, while boarded at a breeding farm in Kentucky. The stallion owners sued the breeding farm, alleging that it was negligent in allowing the CEM to spread to their stallions from an incoming stallion, who had been brought to the farm from a Wisconsin quarantine facility where it contracted the CEM. [CEM is regulated by the United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”), in part through its importation guidelines for horses that arrive from foreign countries and are quarantined. These guidelines also prohibit horses with CEM from being imported into the United States.]
Horse owners are, in large part, self-reliant people. They train their own horses, fix their own equipment, and some even do their own hoof trimming and routine vaccinations. When people try to take legal matters into their own hands, however, problems sometimes occur. Here are some examples taken from real cases:
