Equine Law Blog

Equestrian Professional Webinar

There have been several recent equine cases whose rulings are of interest (and extreme importance) to horse professionals. During this webinar, I will discuss the key issues and the legal precedents these cases are likely to set.

In order to keep your business, horses, customers and assets safe, it is essential to stay abreast of how the courts are interpreting current equine laws and be informed about any new laws.

Date

November 14, 2011

Time

8:00 p.m. Eastern (7:00 p.m. Central & 5:00pm Pacific)

"A Look at Recent Equine Lawsuits and How They Affect Horse Professionals" is free to all horse professionals and can be attended via telephone or computer. Once you get your own spot reserved, please share this with your friends in the horse business. The more we know - the more the equestrian community can grow!

Judgments, suits, or settlements seeking millions of dollars are not common, but they can occur.  Many people want to be prepared for this ever-present risk by purchasing extra insurance coverage through an umbrella liability insurance policy.  Is this coverage right for you?

Generally speaking, the law imposes a duty on professionals, such as farriers, to use reasonable skill, diligence and attention as may ordinarily be expected of a careful and skillful person in the same profession.  If you believe a farrier has fallen short of this standard, you might have grounds to bring legal action against him or her for professional negligence or malpractice.

Banks do it.  Credit card issuers do it.  Horses can be expensive, and buyers often want to spread out their payments over time.  Should you, the horse seller, do it?

The business of extending credit is risky. The horse seller and the bank have much in common when they agree to extend financing.  Both take a risk that the buyer will make payments faithfully.  But that is where the similarities end.  Banks protect themselves by credit checks, financial disclosures, and detailed contracts.  Not so in the horse industry.  Horse sellers often part with a horse merely on a handshake and with only a tiny fraction of the purchase price paid up front -- just minutes after meeting a total stranger who wants to buy the horse.

This article discusses some pitfalls of installment sales transactions and offers some practical suggestions for avoiding them.

"Releases are not worth the paper they're written on."  Is this really true?  Generally speaking, no.  What is true, however, is that releases of liability (also called "waivers")  are probably the most misunderstood contracts in the entire horse industry.

People in the horse industry sometimes enter into arrangements through which the horse is shared by agreement between two people, while only one of them owns the horse.  People in the horse industry call these arrangements “half lease” or “share board” arrangements.  They may seem simple but, in the eyes of the law, they can be complicated and call for a carefully written contract.  Here are a few details to consider:

Horse trainers, it might seem, should expect the risk of being thrown or injured by the horses they train.  Over the years, however, injured trainers have sued their clients, and sometimes they win.  As explained below, trainers are more likely to win if they can prove that the owner or stable knew that the horse had unusually dangerous tendencies but failed to warn them.  Trainers are more likely to lose if the risk at issue was an “inherent risk” or an “assumed risk.”

What happens when an equine lease ends, but the lessee refuses to return the horse?  Can the lessor (the “lessor is the one who owns the horse and leases it to another) simply enter the premises and remove it?  A lessor owns the horse, and one would expect that he or she can simply re-claim the property, even if it means entering someone else's land and taking away the horse.  Be careful!

Problems can occur, especially when a lease agreement is not in writing.  For example, what if the “lessee” (the “lessee” is the one who takes possession of the leased horse under the terms of the lease agreement) thought he bought the horse?  Or, what if the lessee thought the lease was not over?

We expect judges to appear at horse shows.  But horse shows sometimes appear before judges – in a courtroom.

Liabilities

Participants and spectators are occasionally injured at shows.  When this happens, they sometimes sue under theories of negligence or an applicable state equine activity liability act.  Both are discussed briefly below.

This segment addresses the basics of veterinary malpractice - what it is and what it isn't.