legal options on vet bill? HELP!!

A

Amber...

Well-Known Member
Joined
18 February 2011
Messages
100
Visit site
I've got a 3 year old fresian who 2 days ago was chased around the field, kicked and bitten by one of the other horses on my yard. In the end the other horse ended up kicking her over the wall and she fell down the 5 foot drop onto the road. Luckily there was no cars about and nobody got hurt. She landed on her feet and seemed fine in herself. No lameness, heat or stiffness in the legs. Now 2 days later she seems a little off. Her legs were a bit warm and i felt lumps around her tendons so i got the vet out. The vet confirmed she'd escaped serious injury luckily and had just jared her joints a bit. Obviously i was mad and spoke to the owner of the other horse who really has no idea about horses and shouldnt be allowed to keep one! She refused to pay the bill because in her words, "horses are horses its not my fault". I spoke to the yard owner and he isnt prepared to sort the problem out even though this lady and her horse has caused many problems on the yard before, resulting in a lot of the other liverys leaving. I wondered if anyone knew were i stand legally on the whole situation? Is there anything i can do that means she has to pay the bill or at least contribute towards it? As it was her horses fault and she did witness it with her own eyes. After which she just turnt around and walked off!! Any advise pleaseeeeeee x
 
I'm afraid IME the case has always been that you chose to turn your horse out with this other horse and therefore it was at your own risk.

I'm sorry. I'm no legal eagle, i may be wrong. I hope your horse is ok. I would suggest speaking to the YM about putting your horse in a different field or finding a different yard.
 
I've never heard of anyone successfully making another owner pay for injuries caused in the field, & if I was the other owner I'd be reluctant to offer to contribute in case it was seen as admitting liability. If you have a case against anyone, which I doubt, then I'd say it was against the YO if you can prove that he knew the horse attacked others on a regular basis in a way that went beyond normal horse behaviour.
 
Sorry to add to the above, but you wont have a chance of a claim. A friends horse was ultimately killed by another horse (serious kick, Rossdales, PTS) and she couldnt ask for bill payment (in fairness she didnt either, but the YO did have to ask the horse/owner to leave as she couldnt accomodate seperate grazing, thankfuly all was done with well meaning)
 
People must insure against their OWN risk except for a few exceptions . Unfortunately since the big exception is the one we are most used to ,Motor insurance,we tend to think this is the normal situation. No you wont be entitled to claim against them except in the case of gross negligence (very hard to prove)
 
Very sad, but that's horses. You accept the risk of injury by turning out in company, and it's hardly the other persons fault that your horse got chased.

Clearly you will need to make provision to turn your youngster out with more appropriate company in future - but you have no grounds for a claim.
 
The problem is proving which horse did it. A friend of mine's horse kicked its field mate badly and as a result she offered to use her insurance to pay for the vet bills. There were only 2 horses in the field, and she's an honest person, so it was a no contest situation.

Without that kind of admittance, its pretty impossible to prove who was at fault.
 
I am glad your horse is not badly injured but if you knew the other horse was agressive and was likely to behave like this, and you still turned yours out with it, then you accepted the risk. That is why you have insurance. I think you just need to thank your lucky stars that it was not worse!
 
Andalucian said:
The problem is proving which horse did it. A friend of mine's horse kicked its field mate badly and as a result she offered to use her insurance to pay for the vet bills. There were only 2 horses in the field, and she's an honest person, so it was a no contest situation.

Without that kind of admittance, its pretty impossible to prove who was at fault.
Click to expand...

I'm really shocked that the insurance company accepted the liability :0 , I would have expected them to say "that's what horses do" and rub their hands of it. It's quite refreshing to hear that they paid up (on third party liability, I guess?)
 
Agree with all of the above and feel that actually by waiting for two days before calling the vet you have no proof that this incident cause your horse to be "off" so def cannot expect the other owner to pay. If you had called vet straight away things would prob be a little different
 
cptrayes said:
I'm really shocked that the insurance company accepted the liability :0 , I would have expected them to say "that's what horses do" and rub their hands of it. It's quite refreshing to hear that they paid up (on third party liability, I guess?)
Click to expand...
NFU, they're good like that!
 
I am sorry but if another horse was to injure my horse whilst out in the field I wouldn't expect that horses owner to foot the bill! Horses will be horses its not as if the owner can sit them down and tell them the do's and dont's of what you can and can't do in the field...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top