CLA wins vital victory for common sense over horse liability

The CLA today scored a major campaigning victory as the Government published a consultation paper proposing reforms to the Animals Act 1971 for which the Association has been lobbying for five years.

Although a change in the law would affect various animals including cattle, in practice, liability cases have overwhelmingly involved horses.

CLA President Henry Aubrey-Fletcher said: "This is great news for horse owners and a great campaigning success for the CLA. The CLA is only organisation that has consistently lobbied on this issue to protect animal owners.

"The proposal would end the unfairness that meant an owner could be held liable for their horse’s behaviour even when they had done everything reasonably possible to prevent an accident."

The CLA President added: "Hopefully, now the risks of having to pay out have been reduced, the insurance companies will cut the premiums animal owners have been burdened with in recent years.

"Of course a person who is negligent in the way they control their animal should be held liable if that animal injures someone, but it is wrong for someone to be held liable if they had no reason to suspect that there would be a problem and, in any event, had done everything they could to prevent it."

The current state of the law is the result of a judgment of the House of Lords in 2003 in the case of Mirvahedy v Henley*.

Their lordships ruled that "strict liability" applied to all animal owners, which meant that the owner of what appeared to be perfectly normal animal could be held liable for any injuries it caused.

This was regardless of how careful that owner had been and regardless of any steps he had taken to prevent the damage.

As well as being fundamentally unfair, this meant that owners of animals could face huge compensation claims, which contributed to a massive increase in insurance premiums.

The CLA previously came close to amending the law working with Stephen Crabb MP on a Private Member’s Bill.

*In Mirvahedy v Henley, Mr Mirvahedy was seriously injured when his car was in collision with a horse owned by Mr and Mrs Henley which had been spooked by something unknown and bolted onto a dual carriageway. The horse had been in a secure field and a claim against the Henleys under liability in negligence failed. However, in a majority judgment in the House of Lords, the Henleys were held strictly liable for the horse’s actions, and thus for Mr Mirvahedy’s injuries, under section 2(2)(b) of the Animals Act 1971.