Motor Vehicle Accidents Involving Escaped Farm Animals: Understanding Liability in Ontario

Motor vehicle accidents involving escaped farm animals can result in serious personal injuries.

These accidents are rare, but when they happen the consequences can be severe.  Just this week, an Arnprior woman was killed when her vehicle struck three loose horses on Highway 132 near Renfrew.

Liability for Escaped Animals

Common Law Duty of Care

Landowners and caretakers of animals have a legal duty to take reasonable care to prevent foreseeable harm caused by their animals. If a landowner fails to take reasonable precautions, they may be held liable for negligence under common law.

Proper fencing and supervision of livestock can help prevent accidents and reduce liability risks.

If a landowner or animal’s owner:

1. fails to take reasonable steps to contain their animals; and
2. someone is injured as a result (either because of a car accident or otherwise)

the landowner/animal owner may be liable for the person’s injuries.  This means that they (or more likely, their insurance company) would have to compensate the injured person for the losses they sustained.

The landowner, animal caretaker, and animal owner can all be different people.  Each one has some responsibility for ensuring the animal is properly restrained.  This is an important thing for farmers to consider before pasturing their animals on another’s property.  It is also important for landowners to consider the additional liability risks when allowing someone else’s animals to pasture on their property.

The liability analysis in such cases is also informed by statutes like the Pounds Act and Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act.

Pounds Act (R.S.O. 1950, c. 280)

The Pounds Act holds landowners or occupants responsible for damage caused by animals under their care.  Section 2 of the Pounds Act states:

2 The owner or occupant of any land is responsible for any damage caused by any animal under the person’s charge and keeping as though such animal were the person’s own property, and the owner of any animal not permitted to run at large by the by-laws of the municipality is liable for any damage done by such animal, although the fence enclosing the premises of the complainant was not of the height required by such by-laws.

There are few cases analyzing the Pounds Act in the context of a motor vehicle accident with “at-large” animals.

Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act

Another statute that can apply is Section 32(2) of the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act, which states that:

(2) Every person who, being the owner or having the care, custody or control of horses, cattle, swine, sheep or goats, suffers or permits them or any of them to run at large within the limits of the King’s Highway is guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to a fine of not more than $50 for every such animal found at large upon the highway, but this section does not create any civil liability on the part of the owner of the animal for damage caused to the property of others as a result of the animal running at large within the limits of the King’s Highway.  R.S.O. 1990, c. P.50, s. 32.

While s 32(2) specifically states that it does not create any civil liability, statutes can often be used to inform the standard of care.

Takeaways

• Farmers and landowners should always take reasonable measures to contain animals, such as proper fencing and secure pastures.
• Victims of fatal and non-fatal injuries and their families can seek compensation for their injuries after accidents involving escaped livestock.
• Establishing liability against a landowner or animal caretaker can be legally complex, and is a necessary step for injury victims to obtain compensation beyond no-fault benefits available to them through their own insurance company.