I am about 90 miles from NYC and land prices etc are very high. much, much higher than in cheaper parts of the country!
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Interesting! Is this in the United States? If yes, what part of the country?
eta if they don’t keep insurance in effect they are personally liable. How is this different from someone without insurance? Aren’t they also personally liable?
I don’t think anyone is enforcing per se that the barn must (by law, by regulation) have CCC insurance; I think maybe you mean that because their homeowners insurance will not cover the losses, that leaves Joe Barn Owner liable out of pocket.
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Is this in the Us?
I could see it for a “commercial “ stable but it would be difficult for Ol Joe who takes in a boarder or two
Disagree for people who only board retirees. See my reason above. Now liability? Definitely!!
Also just because something bad happens it does not mean the BO is “responsible either way”. S@#$% happens, and often it is no one’s fault.
Also, I don’t think there are many barns who operate without liability insurance (your last sentence) or are you referring to the fact that boarders should carry liability insurance for their horses?
I think you are mixing up the two types of coverage a little bit.
ETA: A quick Google search shows both Georgia and Maryland require licenses, so I stand corrected. I would guess there might be other states (not trying to out @Not_Your_Janice!) but I stopped at these two. Interestingly, the licenses are geared towards horse welfare, which is a fantastic idea. I didn’t see any mention of an insurance requirement.
Are you just talking in general? Or specific to this situation here?
Yeah, sure, sometimes shit just happens and nothing would have prevented it. Horses, man. They sure can find interesting ways to get into trouble.
But here we have a small trappy area with really poor fencing and a gate that was too narrow and not hung correctly. (Not to even mention the death trap degloving siding in the background.) There is A LOT here that most would consider very basic steps to creating a horse safe space, that wasn’t done.
This particular issue isn’t “sometimes shit happens.” This was a very unfortunate poor outcome because horses weren’t kept in a horse safe space.
Is the onus on the barn owner, or the boarder? The boarders presumably view the property and see all the risks before they bring in a horse. But…the barn owner is also probably on the hook here from a liability perspective, and it sure behooves him to provide safe infrastructure that is more likely to keep horses contained.
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It doesn’t matter if anyone was at fault or if horses were just being horses a lot of the time. What matters is the horse caused property damage and/or injury. What led to the horse doing that might make a case harder or easier, might identify other potentially liable parties. But the horse owner and barn owner are for sure targets because the horse was the direct cause of the damage.
The value of the horses lost and the costs associated with the emergency care and disposal could trigger CCC insurance. It may be worthwhile to have even for low dollar horses (the premiums take this into account). The damage to the vehicle and potential injury to the driver would implicate liability insurance for the farm and the individual horse owner. How that may be divided up and how fault is assigned can depend on the state.
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Speaking generally, as the post I was responding to was speaking generally.
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If there’s something comparable to your situation I’d consider leaving. But, I know how hard it can be to find good board in some areas. It sounds like the owner has learned some hard lessons this past year. Unfortunately horses can and do break stuff and unless the place is double fenced there’s not much you can do to stop them from leaving. This seems like a really unfortunate accident.
If you like the place maybe suggest putting a stretch of fence from the barn to the other fence so there’s more of a double gate system going on. That would also eliminate the trap point. You could also run a strand of hot tape on top of the fence to encourage the horses to stay away from it. It also isn’t too terribly hard or expensive to separate a pasture with hot tape to keep bullies away from scaredy cat horses.
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Yes. They may or may not ever be found liable depending on the situation and state law, but the costs of defense lawyers can be ruinous without insurance.
In my former state all horse boarding barns were required to be licensed by the state’s Department of Agriculture and had annual scheduled visits by an inspector from the Office of the State Veterinarian. My current state has absolutely no boarding barn regulations at all. This is an example of how boarding barn regulations can vary. My old barn and present barn are only 19 miles apart.
I don’t know how they would know about every backyard barn that has one or two boarders to help with bills and chores , as opposed to an actual lesson/training/boarding barn that is an actual business and required to have business licenses etc.
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I don’t know either, but if you own a mom and pop back yard boarding barn and ignore the state licensing requirement, and an event happens such as that in the topic post, you are likely in more legal jeopardy than if you own a licensed boarding facility.
Now you have me wondering if the OP’s barn owner has bothered to declare that income and pay taxes on income from boarding.
around here neighbors would have contacted the city inspectors, not much goes on unnoticed
You’re kind of an outlier, IIRC
Your barn is very near an urban center, right?
I’m fortunate to be where development on less than 10ac is not permitted.
So I’m surrounded by small acreages, not all with horses.
My 5ac farmette is at the corner of an intersection where the other 3 corners are not horseowners.
But nobody seems to care that I exceeded my legal allotment of Large Animals when I added my mini 8yrs ago.
Two new subdivisions - both 150+ units - were added recently, but they’re both far enough from me that Citiot complaints shouldn’t be a problem.
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I have two locations in my fencing that I have a man gate, not a horse gate. The intent is to provide me access/an exit, not bring livestock or large equipment through (I do take my wheelbarrow through those gates).
Not all gates/doors (because heck, I have a man door into my barn too) are intended for animals to use. To imply that a person is bad for having a small gate is just weird to me, and it is hard for me to believe that is a point that a long time horse person would be trying to make for this place being evil. The points about what is actually not optimal about this place get lost when we (general horse people) start picking on things that are not at fault and are normal things.
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The gate was too narrow for the opening in the fence. A wider gate should have been hung in that space. This is apparent because fence boards extend well past the post on one side, in an attempt to narrow the opening, and the hinge pin that remains in the post on the other is so far extended it’s probably just barely screwed in. Which is probably why the upper hinge pin is no longer in the post, and lying on the ground.
I am not making a comment at all on using narrow gates in appropriately narrow openings. This gate was too narrow for the opening it was hung in.
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yes, just a few million people around me
we have the center track of fifteen lots that are all at least 2.5 acres so even in the middle of the city my nearest neighbor’s house to the rear is 1,000 feet away, each side is well over 600 feet.
The animal control ordinances are enforced down to a specific number of head per lot and there are some people who enjoy counting
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OP, I’m going through the pictures and while the trappy area is not ideal, that barn is ridiculous. Nails sticking out all over, holes easily big enough for a hoof. Easy going or not, it’s genuinely unsafe just for the barn alone.
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The picture in post #16? I am sure your eyes are better than mine, but I can’t see any holes, and saw maybe one nail in the overhead beam. Is there a way to show them on the picture?
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