Equine Law Blog
You’re about to apply for equine mortality insurance on your new horse. What you might not know is that these policies are unique, and some features of this type of insurance might surprise you. For example:
For years, we’ve received calls like these:
- “I ‘free leased’ my horse to a friend, but now she refuses to return my horse.”
- “A neighbor let me ‘rescue’ her horse because she could no longer take care of him. Now I want to sell him, but my neighbor says I can’t do this.”
In each situation, the parties had no written contract, and nobody was ready or able to undergo an intense and costly legal battle that might follow.
Equine transactions are ripe for a legal dispute when the parties have no written contract and a completely different understanding of the same transaction. Without a contract or agreement explaining the transaction and what the parties’ intended, these types of legal matters can become lawsuits in which the outcome is never predictable. What is a virtual guarantee is that in a court of law the dispute will never be quick, easy, or cheap to litigate.
