Exam
How Well do States Honor their Equine Activity Liability Acts? The Answers
1 The answer is (a) 48 2 The answer is (b) Maryland and California
3 The answer is False. While it is true that most of the states require a warning sign of some kind, not all of them do. If a sign is required by law, then the law is also very specific about what the sign has to say. It is more important that required signage actually be posted than that the injured participant actually sees it.
4 The answer is False. These laws do not prevent an injured person from initiating a lawsuit, so having insurance is valu- able in the first instance because the insurance company will hire (and pay for) a lawyer to defend the lawsuit. While these laws will provide an excellent defense in most cases, not all accidents will present fact patterns for which there is immunity. Furthermore, most lawsuits get settled without going to trial, and if the attorney hired by the insurance com- pany settles a claim then the insurance company will pay the amount of the settlement (subject to policy limits and avail- able coverage).
5 The answer is (b). The court dismisses the lawsuit and finds that the equine activity liability act does protect the stable because the stable asked the woman about her experience level and mounted her on an appropriate animal. The court finds that the law does not impose on the stable a duty to continuously re-assess the woman’s ability throughout the duration of the ride.
6 The answer is (c). The court called the woman’s argument a “complete non-starter”: “a riding instructor does not ‘provide’ a horse owned by the riding student merely by exercising control over the riding lesson. . . . It strikes us as entirely reasonable that a rider who owns his own horse should bear the risk of a mis- match between his riding ability and his horse’s temperament.”
7 The answer is (d). The court agreed that the teen’s injuries resulted from “precisely the kinds of risks that are inherent” in the sport: “she fell off. . . And was then stepped on.” The courts also agreed that there was no causal link between the lack of supervision and the teen’s injuries and that “no reasonable juror could find that [the instructor] failed to make reasonable and prudent efforts to assess [the teen’s] ability before providing permission to ride [the horse that stepped on her].”
78 January/February 2019 The court rejected the father’s argument that in passing
the state’s equine activity liability act, the legislature intended claims of negligent conduct by an equine professional to survive. “We conclude that, when taken as a whole, the statement of intent articulates the statute’s clear purpose: to shield persons involved in an equine activity from liability for negligence claims related to a participant’s injuries resulting from the inherent risks of equine activity. . . . If we were to in- terpret the statement of intent as broadly as the plaintiff sug- gest—so that virtually all negligence claims against equine professionals survive—we would eviscerate the statute and undermine its very purpose.”
8 The answer is (b). The trial court refused to dismiss the case. For starters, it held the waiver was not specific enough be- cause it did not explicitly exonerate the feed company of li- ability for injury suffered as a result of an unreasonable failure to maintain the designated trail. The court held the Maryland Recreational Use Act did not afford the state immunity from the woman’s claim because she paid a fee to participate in the event. The court held that it didn’t matter that she didn’t pay any fee directly to the state because “it would defeat the purpose of the statute if a landowner could charge a third party to host an event and then claim immunity as to all of the participants of that event because they did not pay a fee directly to the landowner.” Because Maryland has no equine activity immunity law,
the inherent risks posed by surface and subsurface condi- tions was no defense. That the woman was an experienced rider and appreciated the risks of the activity was not deter- minative. Nor was the fact that the woman was riding her own horse. Nor was the fact that in the many years the ride had been conducted, no one had ever fallen off that section of the trail. The trial court held that a jury would have many things
to consider in evaluating the woman’s claims, including: whether there should have been warning signs near the culvert, whether the woman was contributorily negligent in her selection of her mount or in her handling of him, and whether she could assume the risk of falling into a culvert of which she had no knowledge.
Krysia Carmel Nelson is a Virginia attorney who is a nationally-recognized expert in equine law. She repre- sents horse owners, trainers, riders, breeders, eques- trian facilities, farms, clubs and associations across all nationally and internationally recognized disciplines. She can be reached at
eqlaw@aol.com.
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