Denise Farris, Esq.

Recognizing the legal status of persons on your property—and undertaking risk control measures—can help mitigate your liability exposure.

What is the stable owner's responsibility and liability potential if a boarder allows someone else to ride his/her horse and the animal gets hurt?

Borrowing horses in any capacity carries risks. How should you best address this issue as the owner of the property or boarding facility or as the person loaning or borrowing the horse?

No matter what is said, unless you have written permission from the horse's owner that an individual can remove the horse from your property, it should not leave.

You know a boarder is supposed to be out of town soon, but today a stranger is at your facility grooming the boarder's horse. What should you do?

What should happen to keep your business or farm legally 'safe' if you see someone you don't know riding a boarder's horse?

What is your responsibility if your adult client brings his/her children to your horse farm or stable?

You owe your licensee/guests a “moderate duty of care” for their safety. This is defined as a duty to warn of any dangerous conditions known to the owner of the property, but potentially unknown to the licensee/guest.

Liability waivers should play an important role in your controlled risk management.

In the boarding and training world, cash is king. Late-paying clients can quickly put a stable out of business. The good news is that there are several extremely effective collection tools available to the stable owner.

The nail and shoe proverb describes circumstances where failure to take timely action at a critical stage leads to logical but unforeseen and potentially disastrous results down the road. No better description exists for that situation where parties in the horse world enter into a verbal agreement without a mindful and deliberate process generating negotiated, written terms and conditions formalizing the transaction.