Deputy AG Loses Suit (Again) Over Falling Off a Horse

A horse is a horse, of course — and if you don’t know how to ride one, you shouldn’t climb into the saddle in the first place.

That’s what three justices on Sacramento’s Third District Court of Appeal told deputy AG Ellyn Levinson, who sued some (ex-?) friends who let her ride their horse, which then threw her, resulting in substantial injury.

“Simply stated,” Justice Arthur Scotland wrote in the ruling released today, “when the social guest asked her social hosts to allow her to ride one of their horses on their cattle ranch, and she professed to have the experience to do so, she ‘bit off more than she could chew’ and has only herself to blame for her inability to control a horse that behaved as a horse when it uncharacteristically galloped off.”

Saddle up and follow the jump ...

It all started at a barbecue at Bert and Anne Owens’ Tehama County cattle ranch in May 2005 held to celebrate Levinson’s success. The Oakland-based attorney had won a summary judgment preventing Tehama County from approving a lot line adjustment. Bert was one of the landowners involved in the litigation and had invited several people, including Levinson, to his ranch.

Once there, Levinson asked to ride a horse and was placed on Pistol — described as a gentle horse with no propensity to bolt — after assuring her hosts she had ridden horses before. Instead, Levinson found herself hanging on for dear life when Pistol took off, made a sudden cut to the left and threw the lawyer into a barbed-wire fence; she suffered a shattered hip and severe facial cuts. She sued for negligence.

But Scotland, joined by Justices George Nicholson and Tani Cantil-Sakauye, held that being bucked off a horse is an inherent danger of horseback riding and that the barbecue hosts had not recklessly increased the risks, as Levinson argued. In upholding the trial court’s summary judgment, Scotland held in Levinson v. Owens, 09 C.D.O.S. 11057, that the Owenses were entitled to take at “face value” Levinson’s word that she was a competent horse rider. He also rejected her claim that the couple should have interrogated her more on her level of skill.

The opinion also immunizes individuals such as the cattle ranch’s owners from liability because they were not acting as a commercial enterprise, such as trail guides or riding coaches.

Levinson, who’s been a practicing lawyer in California since 1977, referred questions to her attorney, Hersh & Hersh partner Nancy Hersh, who said the ruling creates a new immunity for individuals “acting in a non-commercial role” She said that “usurps” the Legislature’s role and intends to seek review by the state Supreme Court.

“They wanted to come to a certain conclusion,” Hersh said, “and they did so.”

— Mike McKee

Comments

[MJT]

Classic primary assumption of risk result

[GJELblogger]

I used to ride horses when I lived in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin there is a statute regarding the inherent risk of equine activities that prevents any rider from bringing suit against a ranch, stable, or owner whose horse he or she happens to be riding. Given the nature of the activity, it's not a bad law...maybe something we should consider here in California.