Injured After Striking a Horse Loose on the Highway

Attorney Answer

No — hitting an animal that got loose onto a highway at night is not automatically your fault, and California does allow a claim against the owner of livestock that escapes onto a roadway. A license suspended for unpaid child support is a separate problem; it is not a cause of a collision with a horse. The urgent issue is neither of those. This crash is several years old, and the two-year period in Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1 is the first thing any lawyer will look at.

The duty starts in a statute. Cal. Civ. Code § 1714(a) provides that "everyone is responsible, not only for the result of his or her willful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or herself." An animal is property, and keeping it contained is management of that property.

Two California appellate decisions apply that rule to your situation. In Davert v. Larson, 163 Cal. App. 3d 407 (1985), the Court of Appeal reversed a summary judgment that had been entered for the landowner, holding there was a triable question whether a duty existed to keep a horse from escaping onto the highway. The owner did not get to end the case simply by pointing out that the horse got out on its own. In Shively v. Dye Creek Cattle Co., 29 Cal. App. 4th 1620 (1994), the court confirmed that the ordinary-care duty of Civil Code § 1714 reaches owners of livestock kept near a roadway, and cited Davert approvingly.

Read those honestly: neither makes an owner automatically liable. You would have to show what the owner did, or failed to do, about the enclosure. What they establish is that this is a real claim, and that the owner cannot end it just by saying the animal escaped.

Your license is a different subject. California apportions fault; it does not bar recovery. Section 1714(a) makes each person responsible for a want of ordinary care, and in Daly v. General Motors Corp., 20 Cal. 3d 725 (1978), the Supreme Court reaffirmed that California uses pure comparative negligence — an injured person's recovery is reduced in proportion to their own share of fault, never eliminated by it. Any reduction has to be for carelessness that actually contributed to the collision. Whether a suspension for unpaid support says anything at all about how you were driving that night is a question for a lawyer, and it is not a reason to abandon the claim.

If the claim succeeds, damages are measured by Cal. Civ. Code § 3333: the amount that compensates for all the detriment proximately caused, anticipated or not. A subdural hematoma and four days in hospital carry real medical expense.

One caution before you talk to anyone. Driving on a suspended license is its own violation, so do not write out an account of the crash or discuss your driving status with law enforcement or with any insurer until a lawyer has advised you.

What you can do

1. Call a personal-injury lawyer in your county today and give them the date of the crash first. The deadline is the threshold question, and it decides whether anything else matters.

2. Ask that lawyer, or a criminal-defense lawyer, about the suspended-license issue before you give any statement about the crash to anyone.

3. Collect the records that already exist: hospital and imaging records, the highway patrol or sheriff's report number, photographs, and the towing and repair bills. Do not write a new narrative of the crash.

4. Send a written request to the hospital's medical-records department for a copy of your records from the admission.

5. Ask the lawyer to identify the animal's owner and whether a ranch, farm or homeowner's policy covers an escape like this.

6. Ask a local lawyer how the range status of that highway affects the owner's duty, since that turns on rules beyond the general duty described here.

Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1 gives two years for an action for injury to an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another, and a claim for your vehicle runs on Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 338(c)(1)'s three years. Whether any exception reaches your facts, and when your period began, is not something to guess at — have a local attorney review the dates immediately.