Hi all, I have people who lease my horse. I’ve never had an injury or any problem but would like to have a strong liability release/waiver form. Can you share yours? I have excess liability insurance but I need a good release form both to protect me and to inform my riders (I require them to have health insurance, for example.)
Talk to a local attorney so that you get what will work in YOUR state. They MUST be strictly in accordance with your statutory and common law. Some states are VERY strict in these matters and a misplaced word or comma will render them ineffective.
G.
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also if your state has an on the books law limiting liability of horse owners… be sure to get the specific required signage that is spelled out in the legislation and post it as noted in the legislation
Texas’s law "Texas Equine Activity Limitation of Liability Act " was expanded in 2011 to cover all to all farm animals.
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.87.htm
by 2015 all but California, Maryland, Nevada, and New York, had enacted similar equine statutes, and since I am not in those states I do not know if they have enacted legislation since then
Thanks. I’m in Washington DC - not a state, we don’t even have a vote in Congress (taxation without representation, for real!) So I doubt we have any equine law of any kind here. Our neighboring states are MD and VA
Well, then, you may be well and truly screwed! 
I’m sure D.C. has rules on tort liability and that’s what this is about so you still might want to talk to somebody about that. Relying on forms you find on the Web is not a good idea. My recollection of D.C. from the time I lived in Silver Spring (mid-80s, during the reign of Mayor for Life Berry) was that it was very much a “plaintiff’s town.” If that is the case I think you’re going to be pretty much out of luck. Make sure you have good insurance coverage and go about your business.
Best of luck as you go forward.
G.
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You are in DC.
Is the horse also in DC?
For a liability releases in DC, talk to any riding stables in Washington about their releases.
In general, for a lease, you should have a full contract that covers who is responsible for what, in addition to a liability release.
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FWIW, you can have the strongest and best liability release waiver document in the world and it still won’t keep someone from suing you. Your waiver may help weigh in your favor but isn’t a ‘do not sue’ guarantee.
Also keep in mind that if someone is riding your horse and they incur an injury that their healthcare pays for, their healthcare may come after you to recover costs (subrogation). I have received letters from my healthcare insurance company asking how I incurred my “injury” so I suspected they were looking for someone else to pay. A friend of mine’s son was using a friends trampoline. He fell off breaking his arm. Yes, my friend’s insurance company went fishing for how the arm was broken to find someone else to pay.
Even if your friend says they would never sue you, maybe true but they would have very little control if their healthcare provider wanted to recover costs associated to an injury incurred on your horse.
You may want to talk to your homeowner insurance company about also getting an ‘umbrella’ rider attached to your homeowner’s insurance and find out what is and isn’t covered in that umbrella.
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Does your horse live in the District? If not, then go with the language of the laws of the state where horse is located and the riding happens. Was there a release that you signed for where the horse is boarded (if boarded)? If so, you can get some guide there at least if the relevant statute was cited.
But as has been said, a release won’t keep anyone from suing you, but it can help your case. If other people are riding your horse, you may want to look into horse owner liability insurance. That coverage is usually pretty cheap and would also cover you if the horse did something that affected 3rd parties, too. Say, horse is being ridden, dumps rider, runs out into the road and causes a car accident.
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Actually might really need to speak with an attorney on that private horse owner liability policy and receiving money for use of the horse. No idea how it works if horse is leased and also be different depending on if you have care custody and control of the horse or somebody else does. Can get complicated.
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Make sure all riders sign the waiver, including someone who just wants a two minute lead line experience. And anyone who is a minor must have a waiver signed by the custodial parent, not just the relative who happens to have the kid with them. Grandparents, and non-custodial parents are not legal to sign.
Check with Rock Creek Stables to see what releases they are using
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Might be better to start with speaking to the insurance company to see if lessee could be a named insured.
The summer after my senior year in high school, I was helping my trainer run summer pony camp. As part of my responsibilities, I’d get to the barn 2 hours before camp started and bring the horses in and feed morning grain and hay so that the horses would have some quiet time in their stalls before the children descended upon them.
We had a field that was across the street from the main barn with 3 geldings who were all buddies who went out there. I had a habit of leading them three at a time, with one on my left, and the other two on my right (one with a slack lead to give him extra room). I knew them all well, and one of them was my lease horse, and it was time-consuming to make the walk out there and back 3 times.
I’m sure you can tell where this is going.
Gelding on near right decided he wanted to play a game of bitey face with gelding on my left. Unfortunately my arm was in the way, and I was left with a small bite wound that was really less than what I deserved for doing dumb things. I dumped two of the geldings back in the field and brought bitey-face back in by himself, making two return trips to get the other two. I cleaned up the wound, slapped a band-aid on it, and went about my life.
I happened to have my college physical with my doctor that evening. During the course of the exam, she found my bite mark (which had blood under the skin and looked quite nasty but not to the point of beginning infection, being less than 12 hours old). She asked me what it was.
I told her I was bitten by a horse but that it was pretty superficial and wasn’t a big deal. Well she must have listed an animal bite diagnosis code on the claim form, because afterwards my mom’s insurer sent a letter asking how the bite was incurred.
I was sufficiently annoyed at my doctor and called the office to complain, as a) I was not there to seek treatment for the bite wound, it was a previously scheduled appointment, b) I didn’t bring it up, she did and c) she didn’t do anything other than ask me how I got it and tell me to call if it was starting to get infected. I also wrote a letter to the insurer that the claim had nothing to do with the bite wound, no assessment or treatment was performed, and that it was my own dumb-a$$ fault that I was bitten because I was violating accepted norms for leading horses.
Nothing ever came of it after that, fortunately, but it just goes to show how easily this can happen. I now have a small scar on my right upper forearm and have never led multiple horses at once since.
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noreins, I don’t know enough about what Dr’s are obligated to ‘report’ or document in a patient’s file but it could be (don’t know) that Dr was obligated to note that in your file and insurance picked up the comment? I would agree that it shouldn’t have been something coded in your record but who knows.
But exactly right, easy for something like this to happen despite the best attempts of the person to whom the injury occurred. During the course of my surgical recovery, two separate times I received letters from 3rd party company that was asked to research my injury to “politely” and a little bit less directly see if someone else could be made to pay. :rolleyes: Ummmm… no.
A physician has a moral, ethical, and legal duty to record what they see in the course of an examination. The reason for the examination is irrelevant. What happens afterwards is not always their doing.
G.
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Agreed. D.C. it is more likely than not to be one of those a strict jurisdictions. Protect yourself and get a document from someone who is licensed in your area.
She could have noted it in my chart related to the visit but it was not necessary to code it on my insurance claim as she did not perform anything related to that diagnosis eligible for reimbursement. Insurance claim forms only serve to inform the payer what they are reimbursing for. Had I known she had planned on coding that, it was within my rights as a patient to specifically request she not bill that code to insurance and she would be obligated to withhold it. The medical record is a different matter.
I also had other issues with this provider’s professionalism prior to and after this, so this incident didn’t occur in a vacuum.
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I’m not an expert in coding and don’t know the relevant rules. Billing is based on coding but so are other things, like statistical analyses and public health issues. Animal bite wounds will be interesting to public health officials for reasons of their own. A comment in a narrative might not give notice of such things; a checked code box will. I don’t know if that was an issued in the decision to code that way. I do know that the condition should be noted and in a way that will inform other persons with a need to know under the various HIPPA rules.
Maybe there is something nefarious here and maybe their isn’t. A certified letter, return receipt requested, to your physician with a copy to your health insurance carrier might be in order.
If you have such a problem with professionalism in this officer you would be wise to seek another provider.
G.
@Guilherme this incident occurred over a decade ago and this provider and I parted years back. But you’re right in that I can’t know the impetus for her indicating the code (and I DID work in medical billing, though not at the time). I don’t suspect that she was trying to get paid for something she didn’t do - if so, she would have billed an office visit for the bite on top of my physical exam and I most likely would’ve been charged a copay for the privilege. I left her out of the response to the insurer, but was personally annoyed due to the circumstances of everything.
I’m only sharing it as an example of even when the patient doesn’t wish to sue for an injury, the insurer may take things into their own hands. In this case, I believe my response to the letter (that nothing they were expected to pay for resulted from the reported injury) that was enough to back down, combined with the fact that they were out no more than $150 for services rendered anyway
OP should tread lightly, as a liability waiver will not offer total protection against a health insurance company that believes they shouldn’t have to pay for something.
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We had a long thread recently on letters of subrogation (?), where the insurer picking up the cost of an injury seeks more information from the injured party about who, what, where and when to see if another party should share the liability costs. Believe they can persue that without consent of the injured party carrying their insurance. You can tear up the letter but they can seek the info elsewhere if they think they can recoup some of their costs elsewhere, and they do just that in some cases.
Interesting thread. It should come up in a search but can’t remember if it was on Off Course or HJ.
