Equine Law Blog

When boarding stables are not paid, they sometimes ask for trouble by taking matters into their own hands without following the law.  For example, some have been known to give away the boarded horses, sell them to offset the debt, or place the horses in their lesson program without first receiving clear permission from the horses' owners.  These actions are usually illegal.

Stables that accept horses for boarding and keeping do not automatically own them when board is unpaid. To become the owner, the stable must follow the law.  Depending on state law, legal action that can include:

Does an equine activity liability law apply to the setting of passengers who are injured during a horse-drawn carriage ride?  Nationwide, courts cannot agree.

In these difficult economic times, boarding stables nationwide are struggling to get their clients to pay.  Stables can be asking for trouble, however, when they make their own conclusions that a horse is abandoned due to unpaid board and then take matters into their own hands without following the law.

In these challenging financial times, people sometimes consider making extra money by taking in boarders. Plan ahead and understand the risks. The arrangement could be far more complex and costly than you think.

The setting is tragic.  The boarding stable catches fire and horses perish.  Is the stable liable?

Merely because a boarding stable’s barn has caught fire, injuring or killing horses inside, does not necessarily mean that the stable is automatically liable for the consequences.

As of October 2011, 46 states have some sort of an equine activity liability law on the books.  Many assume they are all the same.  They are not.  While many share common characteristics, all of them differ.  Here are two examples of how the laws differ:

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.

“Get it in writing!”  No matter how often lawyers utter these cautionary words,  people in the horse industry continue to do business on a handshake.  Unfortunately, legal disputes involving verbal agreements are rarely quick, easy, or cheap to resolve.  Why? 

With nothing in writing, each party to the transaction often has a totally different understanding of what it involved.  As a result, it sometimes takes a lengthy lawsuit to prove the contract’s terms. 

Those who fail or refuse to use written agreements accept the risk that any number of problems can occur.  Here are some of them:

Disputes involving defective horse feed have, in some instances, turned into lawsuits.  Several years ago, I worked on a case where a horse died from blister beetle poisoning, and the horse owners sued a product manufacturer, the hay grower, and the hay seller.

“Blister beetle poisoning” is a type of poisoning that can result when a horse ingests a number of beetles called “blister beetles.”  In the tissue of these types of beetles is a toxic substance called “cantharidin.”  Blister beetles sometimes swarm in or near alfalfa fields in certain regions of the United States, typically the Southwest, and at certain times of the year.  When those alfalfa fields are cut and baled for hay, blister beetles sometimes get caught in the hay and are not always immediately visible.  Later, horses eating the hay might ingest blister beetles.  Some will die or become seriously injured.

This covers practical suggestions for avoiding liability in equine and equestrian activities.

Veterinary malpractice cases are filed far less frequently than medical malpractice cases.  Why?  The tremendous expense and effort associated with malpractice cases often prompts people to take no legal action, purely out of economic concerns.  Also, the law looks at animals, and their values, in a different way than animal enthusiasts do; as a result, almost every state will award significantly less if the case involves veterinary malpractice than it would award if the matter involved an injured human.

This segment addresses equine and equestrian liabilities in a general way as well as state Equine Activity Liability Acts.

Your facility posts “warning” signs, and your state has enacted an equine activity liability law.  Do these make liability waivers/releases unnecessary?

The Difference Between a Sign and a Release

Important differences exist between “ride at your own risk” sign and a release of liability that is legally valid, well-written, and properly signed.  Certainly, the sign may announce the facility’s interest in limiting its liability, but it is rarely enough to fend off a lawsuit when something goes wrong.  Also, my many years of handling equine-related injury cases around the country tells me that after an incident arises, the injured person will often deny ever seeing or reading the sign.

Our challenging economy has taken its toll on equine businesses, many of which are seeing unprecedented numbers of clients who cannot afford to pay their boarding fees.  Does the law allow the stable to sell off a horse for non-payment?  What are the stable's rights?  This podcast explores state laws to prevent stables, owners, and purchasers from costly civil – and criminal – legal battles.

This radio broadcast addresses practical suggestions for horse owners and stables to maintain the right to keep horses in their communities. At a time when urban sprawl has placed retail developments and subdivisions near established horse facilities, this topic is timely and informative.

A barn worker, while driving to the feed store to pick up a load of grain, is injured in an auto accident.  A stable employee gets kicked in the head while pasturing a horse.  Both have huge medical bills, and it will be months before either can return to work.  This article generally explores the law of workers' compensation.

Many people believe that the one who is named on a horse’s registration papers is the horse’s true owner.  This issue is not only important in sales settings but also in liability settings, as well.

Courts in a few states have examined the issue of whether registration papers prove ownership and have held that the name appearing on a horse’s registration papers may not necessarily be the name of the horse's true owner.  In essence, these courts have recognized that differences exist between registration papers and a title to a car.  There are several reasons for this; here are two:

Imagine the shock of returning from a lengthy vacation only to learn that your horse died at the boarding stable soon after you left, but stable management could not reach you to consent to needed surgery.  Your horse was put down.  Imagine the further shock when your equine insurance company advises you that it has denied your claim because nobody gave it proper or timely notice of your horse’s illness and death.

Equine insurance policies usually require that you give the company (or designated representative) prompt notice of an insured horse's illness, lameness, or injury.  Insurers take these provisions very seriously, and many will deny claims on the basis that they were not given proper notice.  When this happens, litigation sometimes follows.

When finances are tight, people sometimes consider canceling or reducing their liability insurance coverage. Watch out – this could be mistake.

What is Liability Insurance?

Liability insurance as to equine activities is designed to protect people from certain unintentional situations where someone is injured either on your property, from an act that occurs around your horse (such as a bite or kick), when your horse gets loose, or from acts that occur when someone rides your horse.

A few years ago I represented buyers of a horse who were victims of sales fraud.  We took the case to trial, and we won.  The judge even ordered the sellers to pay 100% of my clients’ legal fees.

The facts of the case were not complex.  My clients bought a show horse for their daughter, a novice rider.  In sales literature, the sellers represented this horse, a gelding, as “sound” with “no bad habits” and “ready to show.”  My clients brought their daughter before the sale to test ride the horse, and he behaved beautifully in a chaotic environment with many distractions.  Two days after the purchase, however, the horse showed drastic behavioral changes.  He was unruly and dangerous.  The sellers refused to reverse the sale.  Left with a dangerous, unsound, and unsuitable horse, my clients had no choice but to hire me to help.

The fact is, many sales disputes can be avoided.  Here are eight suggestions for what sellers should not do when selling a horse:

In these difficult financial times, more boarding stable customers than ever are falling behind in their board payments.

Stable’s Rights

Many states have stablemen's lien laws (sometimes called “agister's lien laws”) that often give the stable a lien (or right of lien) on the boarded horse.  In some states, the lien is created automatically, but in other states, procedures, such as a suit, must be taken to formalize the lien.  Laws can also address whether the stable can deduct side charges (such as legal fees, hauling fees, sale fees, or others) from the sale proceeds.  With wide variations among the laws, stable managers need to check the law carefully before taking drastic action.

I receive numerous calls from people in the midst of contract disputes.  Most people thought they protected themselves by using a contract, only to discover later that the contract was either silent or unclear on an important aspect of the transaction.

Let me share with you some problems people have encountered with equine industry contracts to help you avoid them.

The buyer pays for the horse, but before delivery, the horse dies.  Who gets the money?  Three words can answer the question: "risk of loss."

Who bears the risk of loss in an equine sale if the horse dies after the transaction completes but before the buyer takes possession?  In the eyes of the law, the answer is:

When a horse escapes and collide with a car, legal battles can follow.

Loose Horse Laws

Laws associated with loose horses generally fall into these categories:

There really is no set definition.  Basically, it can be defined as the practice of law that involves all types of horses, horse-related activities, horse businesses, horse organizations, and horse facilities.  Many attorneys with equine law practices serve horse owners or professionals by, for example, preparing or reviewing equine-related contracts.  Others handle disputes and litigation arising from an equine transaction.  Some attorneys work exclusively on tax or immigration issues unique to the equine industry.

Some stables, in an attempt to save money, label their workers “independent contractors” instead of “employees.”  Be careful – this could be trouble waiting to happen.

The law of contracts can be more complicated than you think.  Sometimes it is simpler than you think.  This quiz might help you test what you know – and don’t know – about contracts.

The buyer makes payment and hauls the horse home, but soon after the horse is lame, sick, or dangerous.  The buyer suspects fraud in the sale.  Does he have a case?