#horses - #Liability with barn infection

Liability with barn infection

Can a barn owner be held liable if a sick horse boards in our barn and infects others?

Background:

• We own/operate a small barn for boarding and lessons.
• Recently, a horse came to board with us. She wasn't sick when she got here and is current on all vaccinations and is Coggins negative. However, a few days after her arrival she started having a thick runny nose that progressed to a respiratory infection. A few days later, she had an abscess rupture under her chin.
• We immediately isolated this horse and implemented a voluntary quarantine of our barn. No horses in. No horses out. Notified our neighbors. Kept all horses out of the pasture.
• I made bleach spray-bottles and got everyone disinfectant wipes.
• A vet was called and treated this horse. He didn't and doesn't think we need to get a culture and to just treat the horse's symptoms
• A few days later other horses showed the same symptoms.
• No other abscesses but they did get the thick runny nose and lethargy
• They were also isolated and got well after a week
• During that time we used strict isolation protocols. We'd even strip down after each feeding and I used a bunch of old shirts as isolation gowns.

Last week, the vet told us that several different barns in our area are having the same infection. These barns are not near us and have had no contact with us.

It looked like the infection had run its course. Then, about a week ago, another horse developed these symptoms and then had equine purpura hemorrhagica. This horse also had significant swelling of the legs and trunk.

We've bent over backwards trying to help out this boarder with her horse. We like this boarder and want her horse to get well.

Today, her husband told another boarder that if this horse dies (very unlikely) they'll "get a lawyer".

Can we be held liable for this horse's illness?

We had no idea the initial horse was sick and she didn't display any symptoms for several days after she came to our barn.

Submitted October 25, 2017 at 05:45PM by barnowner
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Horses/comments/78rr3d/liability_with_barn_infection/?utm_source=ifttt