Lawsuit filed re: death of jumper near Aiken

The complaint says Shannon Eckel has suffered great mental duress because of things people are saying? Are you kidding me? How about the mental duress that poor Cobain suffered? This woman is beyond horrible and I hope NOBODY uses her for training. How can people like this get up every day and look themselves in the mirror? I thought I had seen evil before but she takes the cake. Unbelievable :money_mouth_face::money_mouth_face:

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Yes. For this horse - take the bedding out of the stall - though I still question whether anyone adequately fed horse would eat a lot of straw. So leave him there with a haynet filled with hay!

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It’s almost all plastic these days. One time when my mare pulled back, the baling twine did not break; her halter did. She nearly flipped herself over in the process. Please note: she does not pull back habitually. It has happened 4 times in 17 years, and in all but one case it was because something scared her. I’m a huge fan of blocker rings as an alternative.

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Can anyone post the lawsuit for us blocked-internationals?

Complaint.pdf (398.7 KB)

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That’s the complaint filed on Eckel’s behalf.

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Thank you! You are the MVP!!

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@vxf111 What is you reaction to the complaint? Could there be an issue with Jurisdiction, and isn’t a conspiracy very difficult to prove?

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She’s not alleging conspiracy: she’s got claims for defamation and IIED. I haven’t researched the applicable law so I can’t really opine whether he claims have merit. I will say that truth is a defense to defamation and IIED generally tends to be pretty challenging to plead/prove. I’m not barred in South Carolina and I’m not super familiar with their state tort law, and that’s what these claims are— state tort claims.

As for personal jurisdiction, again this is going to be in part based on what the state long arm statute says and how it’s been interpreted. I assume all these statements were made online and that may make it easier to get jurisdiction in South Carolina where the effects of the alleged tort were felt. Arguably these defendants made purposeful contact with the state through online postings.

It’s really hard for me to say how viable this case is without doing more research. I will say that it draws Eckel back into the spotlight and I don’t know how great that is for her reputation…. But maybe she felt like she had to do something to stop people from posting about her?! I saw lots of posts about her recently. LOTS.

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Thanks!

I see, it isn’t in the allegations proper. The words ā€œConspiracyā€ and ā€œconspiratorsā€ were thrown around quite a bit. I wonder what the purpose of that was.

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She appears to think these people colluded to post about her. I don’t know if they did or didn’t. I have seen a lot of posts about her lately and I don’t know whether it’s a bunch of people posting independently or a group that got together to post. I don’t know any of these people but I have seen posts.

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The truth is an absolute defense in the 2 states where I was licensed. However, she probably had already sent cease & desist letters and this is the next step. Probably the plan is that it settles with a mutual gag order.

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I’m scarred for life after grooming for a WP trainer at the ripe age of 15-16 at Nationals, Worlds, and Reichart. I saw the most horrifying things on a daily basis.

Also (general), idk about any of you but getting near a horses FACE with a pocket knife while it’s panicking (presumably because the person was justifying tying with a rope halter and having a pocket knife handy just in case…) sounds like an absolutely horrific idea.

Big fat no in my book :woman_shrugging:

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I don’t read any social media but the COTH forums, so I don’t see much.

I wonder if the lawsuit filed by the owner of the horse that died in her care was settled, or dropped. I suppose there must be some sort of record of the resolution, but I agree with you that if I was in her place, I’d not keep the incident in the forefront.

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People stating that she ā€œmurderedā€ a horse is silly and over the top. Horses aren’t ā€œmurderedā€ they are killed.

She didn’t cut it’s throat or shoot it, she apparently left it in a bad situation that caused it to panic and kill itself. The photos were horrific and it seems she does bear some responsibility for that.

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That lawsuit (by Cobain’s owner) appears to have settled.

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Interesting that she used these words in her Facebook post:

It seems it never made it to court because it was settled. If it was settled in her favor it would be to her benefit to mention that, so it makes you wonder.

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There’s no ā€œprevailing partyā€ in a settlement. A settlement means the parties reached a mutually agreeable resolution without the court deciding a ā€œwinnerā€ or a ā€œloser.ā€ So I don’t know what she could say about the settlement, especially if its terms are confidential. I guess if the terms aren’t and she settled without paying any money she could say that… but she hasn’t and I don’t know if that’s because she did pay or because the terms are confidential. We don’t know.

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Right. We don’t know, but she does. Not being a legal professional like you, I tend to think of a settlement in terms of which party (if any) had to pay, and if they did, the settlement was not in their favor.

I realize that some lawsuits are settled because the party or company being sued just wants to get rid of the nuisance, but it’s hard to believe that is the case here. Still its curious that she’s keeping the dead horse in the news.

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I think most settlements are motivated by avoiding the uncertainty and cost of trial but that doesn’t mean a settling party doesn’t have a strong case. Nobody likes to pay attorneys :wink: and trials aren’t cheap.

I agree that keeping the allegations in the zeitgeist doesn’t seem like a terrific idea if you want them to go away but my perception was that chatter about Cobain was growing not shrinking (just my perception) so maybe she felt like she had to do something?! I don’t know.

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