Talk to me about liability for allowing riding on your property

[risuenaVT]

My brother and I own a large property (200+ acres) and we rent it out to a neighbor for crop farming. Over the last couple of years, a couple of friends with trailers and I have talked about trailering horses over for a trail ride. As of today, I know that my brother is fine with the idea. As is the farmer renting our fields - while he definitely wants any horses on the property to stay on the edges of the planted fields, he doesn’t think a couple of horse would cause appreciable damage to the crops.

But also the issue of liability came up in discussions today because we were all talking to a different neighbor about something else and he mentioned an incident where a rider had come on to his property and had a major incident. He’s still generally okay with horses on his property, but his sister, who is an actual horsewoman is extremely worried about liability, so in deference to her, he no longer allows riders.

Which made me wonder about liability for riders on my property. At this point, the only people I’m thinking about allowing to ride are my friend who owns my lease horse, and she’d trailer over both of her horses and we’d ride together. But another friend just started boarding at a facility that shares a short border with my property and since that boarding facility doesn’t have much in the way of trails, she’s asked if she could ride my land.

I want to allow this! I also think it would be awesome to ride my property with friends! My farm and family have history with horses (while my property was a dairy farm for most of the 20th century, I have photos of ancestors with their prized horses. Also have some old school laced half chaps in the attic. Horses are in my blood and the history of the property), but also I want to be careful.

Would having my friends sign a liability waiver be sufficient? Are there other concerns and legal issues I need to look into or know about before allowing a friend or two to ride on my property?

[risuenaVT]

Oh, and because states and jurisdictions matter, I’m in Maryland. Frederick County, specifically.

[OverandOnward]

Call a local board barn with a proprietor that you know and trust, and ask them to share names and numbers for whoever covers their liability insurance and for the attorney they use to keep them on the good side, if they use one.

On an internet forum, you can get some useful advice and personal experiences of others. But only from the the insurance company, and possibly the attorney, will you get the best information on how to proceed.

A thought for you – If you decide to allow riders and also have insurance coverage, charge something for each ride, to help offset the annual cost of the insurance. As well as having liability waivers and a short one-page list of do’s and don’t’s for riding on your property.

Sounds like a lovely day out with horses! Good luck!

[Mango20]

I believe in Maryland, if you’re not charging a fee for someone to ride, you’re also not liable. That’s what I’ve heard at least.

[risuenaVT]

@OverandOnward

On an internet forum, you can get some useful advice and personal experiences of others. But only from the the insurance company, and possibly the attorney, will you get the best information on how to proceed.

Oh, absolutely, I’m looking for general advice, not truly legal advice. And it hadn’t even occurred to me to talk to the insurance company to see if riding was covered, so that’s a helpful tidbit!

[risuenaVT]

Gonna have to research that, because that would make it all easy (I’d still likely make my friends sign a liabilty waiver, just as a CYA)!

[furlong47]

@risuenaVT

Would having my friends sign a liability waiver be sufficient? Are there other concerns and legal issues I need to look into or know about before allowing a friend or two to ride on my property?

If someone is seriously injured, even if they have sworn that they won’t sue you themselves, their health insurance company can sue you on their behalf in order to recoup funds if they feel you are at all responsible. (Subrogation.) I would make sure you are insured for liability.

[risuenaVT]

Thank you for this. I’ve always been skeptical of liability waivers and vaguely known that they didn’t fully protect an individual/organization/whatever from liability but never quite understood why. The health insurance or others suing on their behalf almost makes sense.

I am having major sympathy for boarding barns and lesson barns right now because their insurance has to be crazy with all of this.

[2DogsFarm]

Just know that any friend can become a litigant, with or without the subrogation by insurance.

From my personal experience:
Two friends from my Driving Club.
These women were close friends of many years, always came to drives together. Horsecamped, trailrode & generally Peas in a Pod.
Then A’s horse got spooked on a drive, B (foolishly) leaned out of her carriage to try & stop the runaway & was pulled out herself.
She was injured badly enough to be hospitalized & discharged with a back brace.
Then sued A.
Came to subsequent drives not wearing the brace. Apparently able to go about her ADLs, retired so not missing any income from a job.
Still.owns, rides & drives horses.
A also retired, no huge resources to be attached from a lawsuit.
Court case is now going on 5yrs & no resolution, but the friendship has ended.
& as a result, B has been told her membership in the Club is terminated as Club was also named in the suit.
Club requires signed waivers as part of the membership agreement.

[ClassyJumper]

USEF has a liability policy for members for $25 a year. You only have to be a subscribing member (also $25 a year) to enroll. I think it is mostly for damage caused by your horse, but for $25 I just buy it and hope I never have to use it.

[anonevent]

There, I’d call local trail associations or hunt clubs to ask about how insurance works. I know that my annual membership contributes to liability insurance cost, but I have no idea what that policy looks like.

There’s probably also value in speaking to a real estate attorney about subdividing the property so that the leased land is technically in an LLC.

[cayuse]

I wouldn’t do it without a liability policy and even then I wouldn’t open the door to it. But I have a very low tolerance for risk living with my barn near the road and having so many people want to come onto my property to pat/feed the horses and finding uninvited people in my barn over the year. Most were harmless but the one person I had problems with was the one I least expected it from.

[frugalannie]

Lawyers who were also horsemen drafted the law in Massachusetts limiting liability for horse related activities. The following sign has to be posted on the property:

WARNING

Under Massachusetts law, an equine professional is not liable for an injury to, or the death of, a participant in equine activities resulting from the inherent risks of equine activities, pursuant to section 2D of chapter 128 of the General Laws.Our lawyer also advised up to not charge for people riding on our property or using our indoor. We require trainers/ instructors/ coaches to provide us with a copy of their insurance AND we require liability waivers from riders/ boarders, family members and friends coming to watch etc.

If you have a local Farm Bureau, check in with them. They may be more helpful than you think, and ours also has a link to affordable insurance.

My concern with the scenario you’ve described is that it will be difficult of not impossible to keep folks from the boarding barn other than your friend from riding on your property. And they may well not respect the rule of staying off the crops, nor sign waivers. Once you open the door, others will enter. At least post “No Trespassing” signs. And I’d mow a path around the edge making clear that is where riding should occur.

Finally I’m very envious that you have this available to you! Some of my best memories are of riding around a farmer’s hayfields in all seasons.

[Mango20]

Here you go, it’s called the Maryland Recreation Use Act.

Another protection available in Maryland to those providing the opportunity to the public for recreational equine activities use on their own property is the Maryland “Recreation Use Act.” (Md. Code Ann., Nat. Res. § 5-1101 et. seq.) This statute provides immunity from liability when an activity involves educational and/or recreational purposes and there is no collection of money for this opportunity. Under these conditions there is no duty of care of the property owner to the participant (recreational and/or educational).

[OverandOnward]

@risuenaVT

And it hadn’t even occurred to me to talk to the insurance company to see if riding was covered, so that’s a helpful tidbit!

Definitely talk to your current insurance company. But you may need a particular kind of insurance for equestrian activity that you obtain from certain agencies that specialize in equestrian.

[OverandOnward]

@risuenaVT

I’ve always been skeptical of liability waivers and vaguely known that they didn’t fully protect an individual/organization/whatever from liability but never quite understood why.

Almost every state (maybe every state) has a law that exempts certain equestrian businesses from liability. Plus, liability waivers.

And in for every state law that I personally know of (I’m not an attorney), it is possible to pierce that law and successfully sue, anyway. If they can make a case for gross negligence.

• It is almost impossible to fully protect from an accusation of gross negligence. All of us are certain that we would never do anything that would be gross negligence. But, our intentions are not the sole criteria for a court to determine if that is what happened.

Gross negligence is what some lawyer insists that it is, if they figure out how to get a judge to buy into their argument. A judge that probably knows nothing about horses, but has a highly upset plaintiff in front of them with a compelling case. (See the anecdote posted above about the accident with the lady drivers, for an idea of the confusion, and how such cases can be drawn out over time.)

• Horse people may well have the financial means to sue when other random citizens would not. People who are hurt, possibly in grief over loss of life, their horse is hurt or dead, and especially: ANGRY – may be motivated to fiercely press ahead with a lawsuit, regardless of the logic of the grounds to sue (see again the lady drivers above). Sometimes even appealing after a judge decides against them.

There are some grim lawsuits out there over equestrian mishaps that probably don’t merit a lawsuit. And yet there is a lawsuit, and sometimes one that goes on and on for years, through delays and even appeals.

• Who decides if it is ‘gross negligence’? Answer #1: Not the defendant. Answer #2: Attorneys who specialize in lawsuits are good at finding ‘experts’ who can deliver hours of confusing testimony insisting that it was gross negligence. Some of these ‘experts’ are woefully uninformed, but know how to make a presentation. Of course the defendant has their own counterpoints. But in the end, what is a judge to think?

• A lawsuit in any status except resolved can come up on background and credit checks of the plaintiff. Certain unresolved lawsuits can hamper credit-worthiness in certain unrelated personal and business financial concerns.

So all of that is to advise not to be casual about liability in the United States.

[Do you know that there are countries where the average horseperson doesn’t know what ‘liability’ is? Fwiw.]

[OverandOnward]

The liability waiver is very important, legally.

But as I see it, the main purpose of the liability waiver is to impress on the guest (student, buyer, client, etc.) that they are signing away their rights to sue.

That won’t stop everyone. But it is likely to divert quite a few aggrieved people who will believe that they are not able to sue. Unless they trouble themselves to talk to a lawyer – but many injured people never do.

[Annie10]

I think it’s much different if you are charging . As opposed to riding with invited friends.
Also a variable is their riding ability, and if they are riding their own horses or yours.
Not sure if it would be comparable to having a friend over for diner and they slip in your kitchen, but Im sure a lawyer could clarify

[risuenaVT]

Admittedly, I really want to find reasons to allow my friend, and my lease horse’s owner and I to ride on my property, but I am also trying to be realistic.

So thank you so much for digging up the Maryland Recreation Use Act for me. I’m still going to go and do research around that and riding, but that makes me think, it might be okay.

I don’t want to charge people money, and while we rent the property out to a neighboring farmer, we are not a business (and for some other complicating factors, my brother and I have agreed to sell the property to the farmer who rents our fields and closing is tentatively scheduled for late August). The farmer/buyer so far has been okay with the idea of two or three riders on going around the property, as long as waivers are signed and they stay to the side of the fields.

So yeah, a complicated situation. All of you have provided a lot of information and a lot of things to think about. My default is to allow riding (and my brother and the renter/potential buyer also seem to be okay with a small amount of riders), and my current understanding of the Maryland “Recreation Use Act” makes me think we might be okay.

But, I am going to take a few days, do some research, and also just kind of sit and think about it for a few days before I make a decision.

Because as much as I would love to ride my lease over my property with friends, I also don’t want to open myself up to liability.

So thank you all for your comments! I’ve definitely learned things! And there is definitely a lot to consider with allowing riders on the property!

[Bluey]

TX has such laws and our attorney made us appropriate liability release papers.
We had neighbors and friends and 4H kids, that also have their own liability releases come train here.
Our dog club, also with its own liability insurance covering us, put on agility matches.

A few years after that, our attorney told us to quit letting anyone in, that there had been several lawsuits and even with those new laws and liability releases, the cases went against the land owner, those laws and liability releases were no more than wet paper.
The way he put it, consider the pleasure of letting others enjoy riding there against the very real consequences of losing all we have, after possibly years of terrible stress, to a lawsuit.
In today’s legal world, given an injured party and a good attorney on their side, juries want to help the injured party and have no qualm to do so on the backs of the land owner.

Do get a good contract attorney to draw the best paperwork you can, get the best insurance you can buy and, if you let people in, cross your fingers that nothing happens.