Legal Evaluation

[Joane Pappas White <Lyoness@Castlenet.com>]

Wow!!  You are starting to see the issues!  I wish you would share them
with Ridecamp but I will let you decide whether you wish to do that.

I'll leave the Rider Issue for tomorrow as promised but many of you are
starting to try a review your own statutes.  I cannot find one for
California.  Okay fellow legal types---where is it?  Is there one?

I just sent Idaho's to Dot and noticed that it has even stronger
protection language for equine sponsors.  One of the issues we will be
addressing is:  Who is barred from suit.  Montana's statute says "no
person" may maintain suit for injuries.  Idaho's makes it clear that
even the heirs of an injured or dead participant are barred.

One thing I wanted to point out (and you are all hitting around it).  In
evaluating the legal burdens of proof in a case, insurance is something
about which a jury will never be told.  In Utah even mentioning the
existence of insurance is grounds for an immediate mistrial so I have
not addressed the issue yet.  BUT it is a, if not the, major factor in
any evaluation.  

The vast majority of people who come to me because of injury do not want
to sue and never saw themselves as a party in a lawsuit.  Most are very
upset about having to even be in the office but they are there because
they are (1) desparate from trying to deal with medical bills because
they had no insurance of their own or (2) feedup trying to deal with
insurance adjusters.  Over half of my PI clients only wanted their
medical bills addressed.  They never even thought about permanent
injury, lost work, pain and suffering.  They would have signed a release
for everything if the young adjuster would have just been fair about the
medical bills.

Even most of you think in terms of the staggering medical bills which
occur in a serious injury and the thought that the injured party might
be further injured by those medical bills is motivating many of your
comments. How those bills will be paid, is there insurance, could the
medical providers sue directly if a Liability statute doesn't exist?

Thank you George McGraw (legal type as I recall) for one of the real
solutions for all of us.  We agree to assume the physical risk in this
sport but how many of us are really prepared to assume the financial
risk to ourselves and our families if we are hurt.  

I took my junior to a horse show last weekend and saw a friend of his
that was not competing.  I asked why and he said that his father had
just started a new job and his mother would not let him ride until the
family medical insurance was in effect.  I think that is being
responsible.

Many of you are "assuming" that everyone has health insurance.  I live
in rural Utah and many people, particularly in agriculture, do not have
any at all.  A policy for a family can now run $400+ a month--and that
is if you are healthy.  

Reasonable horse related insurance for riders, RM or others who
regularly participate in this sport is one way for us to be prepared for
the consequences of our actions. 

Maybe the RM cannot afford it for the ride but ask yourself if you can
afford to be without your own!  Perhaps some of you who have been
seriously injured can tell us the kind of $ totals we are talking about.

Joane White

It never even occurred to me that I should check the medical coverage of
the rest of the Lyon Crew!  Under many of these statutes, even casual
bystanders like your kids (and the neighbor's child that came with you)
would be excluded from making claims so you had better make sure you can
take care of them if something happens.


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