“Where any damage is caused by an animal which belongs to a dangerous species, any person who is a keeper of the animal is liable for the damage, except as otherwise provided by this Act.”
“Where damage is caused by an animal which does not belong to a dangerous species, a keeper of the animal is liable for the damage, except as otherwise provided by this act, if – (a) the damage is of a kind which the animal, unless restrained, was likely to cause or which, if caused by the animal, was likely to be severe; and (b) the likelihood of the damage or of its being severe was due to characteristics of the animal which are not normally found in animals of the same species or are not normally so found except at particular times or in particular circumstances; and (c) those characteristics were known to that keeper or were at any time known to a person who at that time had charge of the animal as that keeper’s servant or, where that keeper is the head of a household, were known to another keeper of the animal who is a member of that household and under the age of sixteen.”
“There is no evidence that Gem had ever before behaved in the way he did immediately prior to C’s accident, namely by refusing to respond to her attempts to control him. I would find that he was not likely to cause injury unless restrained. He was (and probably still is) an ordinary domesticated horse. He was described by D as being quite lazy and needing ‘some encouragement’ before he would canter. I would find further that any injury caused by him was not likely to be severe. I base such a finding on the evidence of Mr Lane. I find that he had no abnormal characteristics. There is no evidence that he did. Was he displaying a characteristic normally found in horses at particular times or in particular circumstances? What was the characteristic that he was displaying? … I find that Gem did not ‘bolt’ in the technical sense of the word, ie he did not take off headlong out of control without regard for his own safety or that of C. Rather, he was going faster than she wanted him to go and she was unable to stop him. I accept Mr Lane’s evidence (and I do not think Mr Meade disagreed with this) that the reason why she was unable to stop him was that she was trying to do it by means of a piece of equipment, namely the bitless bridle, to which Gem was unaccustomed. It was not a case of Gem going off faster than C meant him to go because he was fitted with the bitless bridle. Was it ‘normal’ for horses not to respond to the rider’s instructions in these circumstances? I can find no evidence to support such a contention. If that be wrong and there is evidence to support it, there is no evidence to support the proposition that D knew of such a ‘characteristic’, whether in Gem or in horses generally. Gem had never before disobeyed his rider’s instructions and/or failed to respond to his rider’s attempts to control him. Furthermore, I find it difficult to see that Parliament intended that D should be strictly liable to C for the consequences of this accident on the facts of the case as I have found them to be. Finally, if all the reasoning above with regard to the claim under the Animals Act is wrong, I would hold that the injury that C suffered was wholly due to her own fault in cantering off on Gem as she did using a bitless bridle before testing him adequately with that piece of equipment at that speed in closed and/or open conditions. In those circumstances D is not liable for her injury by reason of the provisions of section 5(1) of the Act. I would not find that C had voluntarily accepted the risk she took in doing what she did that day for the purposes of section 5(2).”
“Q: Would you agree that people fall off horses on hundreds of occasions every day up and down the country? A: At least hundreds every day. Q: And very few of those falls result in severe injury? A: Certainly a low percentage. Q: The majority result in no injury or very minor soft tissue injury? A: Yes. Q: So a fall in the circumstances such as this may possibly result in severe injury but its not likely? A: It might occur, but statistically it probably won’t.”
“We agree that both Claimant and Defendant should have known that all horses can be unpredictable on occasions and that such unpredictable behaviour can include running away/bolting and that riding is a risk sport and the risk is that the rider may be unbalanced and fall or in some other way receive injury … We agree that the fitting of a bitless bridle to allow Gem to be ridden while his sore mouth healed was a sensible decision … We agree that the only way to tell whether a horse will go well in a bitless bridle is by trial. It will be important that the horse’s first ride is in the relatively controlled environment of a riding arena or some such enclosed area in case the horse is difficult to control. We agree that quite how long that the horse should be ridden in the enclosed area must be a matter of judgment but the horse must show that he will slow down and stop from walk, trot and canter. He should then be ridden outside of the area on routes and in areas with which he is familiar and show that he will slow down and stop from walk, trot and canter. When cantering is first practised this should be in a place and direction where the horse will not be inclined to charge off, for instance going away from home or in an area where the horse is familiar with being ridden in that area. We agree that it is common sense that the horse is taken progressively through each stage and that the next stage is only moved on to when the rider is confident that the horse is under control. It is not possible to stipulate a length of time for each stage. The length of time for each stage must be a matter of judgment. We agree that the claimant as the rider should have been in a better position than the Defendant to assess how Gem was responding to being ridden in the bitless bridle.”
“When first introduced to the bitless bridle, it sometimes revives a horse’s spirits with a feeling of ‘free at last’. Such a display of exuberance will eventually pass but be prepared for the possibility even though it occurs in less than 1% of horses. Begin in a covered school or small paddock rather than an open area. Consider preliminary lungeing or a short workout in the horse’s normal tack. These and other strategies familiar to horse people can be used to reduce the small risk of boisterous behaviour.”
“It should be noted that this subsection will only eliminate a small number of cases. Most animal-related damage which someone wishes to sue about will fall into one or other of those two categories.”
“It is obvious that, if a horse bucks on beginning to canter so that the rider falls off, it is reasonably to be expected that severe injury will result.”
“Q: So a fall in circumstances such as this may possibly result in severe injury but it’s not likely? A: It might occur, but statistically it probably won’t.”
“It seems to me that Parliament was trying to draw a distinction between animals that in normal circumstances behaving normally are dangerous and those that in normal circumstances behaving normally are not. As to the former, they belong to a dangerous species and there was to be strict liability for damage [pursuant to section 2(1)]; as to the latter they do not belong to a dangerous species and strict liability was to be limited to damage caused by the animal displaying abnormal characteristics that it was known by its keeper to possess. This seems to me to be a coherent policy. In respect of damage for which no strict liability was imposed, a remedy in negligence would always be available if the keeper of the animal had failed to exercise reasonable care to see that the animal did not cause damage.”
“The fact that an animal’s behaviour, although not normal behaviour for animals of that species, was nevertheless normal behaviour for the species in the particular circumstances does not take the case outside section 2(2)(b).”
“Was it ‘normal’ for horses not to respond to the rider’s instructions in these circumstances?”
“… by refusing to slow down on command or at all when using new equipment, specifically the bitless bridle, Gem was displaying a characteristic normal to horses in that he was conforming to type and displaying a natural characteristic, even if one unusually occurring. It was an effect of the equipment which the users’ manual specifically warned against.”
“If there was intended to be strict liability for damage caused by an animal behaving in a manner normal for its species, one would have expected the Act to categorise the species as a dangerous species. The fact that an animal belongs to a species that falls outside the statutory definition of a dangerous species is, in my opinion, an indication that behaviour by the animal in a manner normal for the species was not intended by Parliament to attract strict liability. If there was intended to be strict liability for damage caused by normal behaviour of non-dangerous animals one would have expected that simple proposition to be simply stated rather than left to be produced by the literary device of turning the double negative in the concluding words of paragraph (b) into a positive.”
“I do not see why a keeper’s knowledge that a horse has the characteristic of normally behaving in a certain way in particular circumstances cannot be established by showing that the keeper knows that horses as a species normally behave in that way in those circumstances … It makes no sense to require a keeper, if aware of that general characteristic, to have some additional and more particular knowledge.”
“negligence, breach of statutory duty or act or omission which gives rise to a liability in tort or would, apart from this Act, give rise to the defence of contributory negligence.”
“The words of section 5(2) are simple English and must be given their ordinary meaning and not be complicated by fine distinctions or by reference to the old common law doctrine of volenti … what must be proved in order to show that somebody has voluntarily accepted the risk is that (1) they fully appreciated the risk, and (2) they exposed themselves to it.”
“… the risk of being unseated by such an event is one which any rider who is competent to canter and hack accepts. Riding is a pursuit involving the control by a rider with the wind and the aids of rein, leg, seat and crop of a horse with its own mind and physical attributes. That relationship and activity involving two living beings cannot be precisely predicted or judged to the second or the centimetre. The occurrence of an accident in such a manner as I have found is precisely the risk and type of risk which a rider undertakes.”
“If, as we have recommended, there is to be a category of animals of a dangerous species for which strict liability is imposed, it would seem reasonable that an animal not belonging to that category should nevertheless give rise to strict liability in respect of injury or damage which it causes if that damage results from dangerous characteristics of the particular animal which are known to its keeper. As far as the potential defendant is concerned, he is equally the creator of a special risk if he knowingly keeps, for example, a savage Alsatian as if he keeps a tiger. As far as the potential plaintiff is concerned, an animal belonging to an ordinarily harmless species, which is known to its keeper to be dangerous is in the nature of a trap—a "wolf in sheep's clothing"—which would seem to justify the same strictness of liability as applies to an obviously dangerous animal.”
“The law at present achieves this imposition of strict liability by the scienter rule, but we think that this rule requires considerable modification and simplification. We would therefore abolish it in its common law form and substitute a new rule retaining what we conceive to be the essential rationale of the old law.”
“It would seem that the act of the animal must be in the nature of an “attack” and does not therefore include behaviour which, although it may cause damage, is merely frolicsome.”
“In practice section 2(1) has a very narrow scope, being almost entirely limited to incidents in (or following escapes from) zoos or circuses. Section 2(2) has to cover the whole range of incidents involving animals of species classified as non-dangerous (which I will call domesticated animals, although that is not an entirely accurate term). That range includes (i) physical injury to humans by biting (especially by dogs) or kicking or knocking down (especially by horses); (ii) injuries caused to livestock (such as a dog worrying a neighbour's sheep, or a cat killing a neighbour's chickens); (iii) road traffic accidents, especially those caused by animals straying on the highway; (iv) damage caused by livestock getting out on to neighbouring land and destroying crops or gardens; and (v) injury or damage caused by the spread of animal infection or by the smell or noise of animals (a class which shades off into cases normally classified as nuisance). So section 2(2) has a lot of work to do. It is expressed in general, abstract terms and it has to be applied to a wide range of disparate incidents.”
“The starting point here is the accident itself. In other words, Ivor rearing up and causing the claimant to fall off onto the road. In my judgment, this requirement is satisfied here, because personal injury arising from such an accident is likely to be severe. Anyone falling off a horse that has reared up and falling onto a tarmac road is likely, in my judgment, to suffer severe injury; still more so is this likely to be the case, in my judgment, if the horse falls backwards onto the rider. Thus, I find the second part of requirement (a) is satisfied.”
“It is a fallacy to say that because drowning is a serious matter there is therefore a serious risk of drowning.”
“If a horse rears in the particular circumstances and the rider falls from the horse, she is likely to suffer severe damage. That may be because she falls on a hard surface (which need not be a tarmac road) or because the horse falls on her or in some other way. I do not understand Miss Rodway to challenge this.” (Emphasis added)
“That is quite unrealistic and unnecessary. The evidence was that, if physical injury was caused by Patty, it would have been caused when she bucked when beginning to canter. There was no evidence of the likelihood of physical injury at any other time or in any other circumstances. It is obvious that, if a horse bucks on beginning to canter so that the rider falls off, it is reasonably to be expected that severe injury will result. In Welsh v Stokes[2007] EWCA Civ. 796 at para [40] Dyson LJ, with whom the other members of the Court of Appeal agreed, regarded this as self-evident in the case of a rider falling from a horse who rears. I see no reason why the same approach should not be appropriate in the case of a rider falling from a bucking horse about to canter.”
“…it is not, and should never be, the policy of the law to require the protection of the foolhardy or reckless few to deprive, or interfere with, the enjoyment by the remainder of society of the liberties and amenities to which they are rightly entitled. Does the law require that all trees be cut down because some youths may climb them and fall? Does the law require the coastline and other beauty spots to be lined with warning notices? Does the law require that attractive waterside picnic spots be destroyed because of a few foolhardy individuals who choose to ignore warning notices and indulge in activities dangerous only to themselves? The answer to all these questions is, of course, no. But this is the road down which your Lordships, like other courts before, have been invited to travel and which the councils in the present case found so inviting. In truth, the arguments for the claimant have involved an attack upon the liberties of the citizen which should not be countenanced. They attack the liberty of the individual to engage in dangerous, but otherwise harmless, pastimes at his own risk and the liberty of citizens as a whole fully to enjoy the variety and quality of the landscape of this country. The pursuit of an unrestrained culture of blame and compensation has many evil consequences and one is certainly the interference with the liberty of the citizen.”