A recent case out of the Waco Court of Appeals, James v. Young, is the real-life version of many landowners’ nightmare.  When a six-year-old child fell off of a horse the landowners allowed him to ride, his parents filed suit.  Did the Farm Animal Liability Act apply to shield the landowners from liability? Background The James family and the Young family were friends.  One weekend, the two families were spending time at the Young ranch.  The mothers and two of the children rode horses while several of the men… Read More →

In Part 1 of this series, I offered a detailed outline and explanation of the Texas Farm Animal Liability Act (“the Act”).  Today, we will review Texas appellate cases that have applied the Act to see how the statute plays out in real life.  As the Act is relatively new, originally passed in 1995, there are not a huge number of opinions analyzing this statute. Dodge v. Durdin, Johnson v. Smith, Young v. McKim The first group of cases we will consider are those analyzing whether the Act’s… Read More →

The Texas Equine Activity Limitation of Liability Act was originally passed in 1995 and applied only to equine animals.  Forty-six states, all but California, Maryland, Nevada, and New York, have enacted similar equine statutes, although each state’s statute greatly differs in details.  The purpose of these statutes are to encourage participation in equine activities, to ensure the public is aware of inherent risks of equine activities, and to provide limited liability to equine facility operators. In 2011, the Texas Legislature amended the statute to apply to not only equine animals, but… Read More →