Message #206062

[treeingratterrier]

What kind of road did they escape onto or from, was it a FM road??  It makes a difference in standard of care to the fence, that is to say if the road is a state hiway you have a higher degree of care to the fence.  Most FM roads have sorry fences because the landowner is not responsible in Texas for escaping livestock as livestock is known to roam.  It used to be people would drive around and run into cows and try to sue the lanowner for repairs, they got this law enacted in the 60's.  If you joined a US 59 hiway or an Interstate then you have to have better fences and they use a standard called negilence I cant remember anymore.  That is to say if you had a good fence and gate latches and a tree fell on the fence bordering us 59 and your horses got out and got killed you would not be liable, but if you had sorry fences out of repair you are responsible.  You can still be sued but it the degree of neglect is lower on FM roads, that is too say, a trail lawyer will ask the sheriff and all of the neighbors if your horses had been getting out daily for how many weeks before they were hit, they will send an private eye to snap pics of the fence and the gates and latching systems.  We had a neighbor on a fm road let  a fence become almost a walk thru where  a bull got out onto US 181 and got struck and hit by a 16 year old in a chevy truck. The private eye found the bd fence in several places and interviewed several neighbors and got records from the sheriffs ofice about all of the loose bull calls that they answered whre they went and drove the bull back into his pasiture daily for a month almost.  The bull owner got a judgement filed against his property for $40,000 and is still pending until he dieses and estate is settled, the truck was totaled, the girl face horrible with tons of bills, they went to trail and the bull owner did not show up so snap jedgement and lein filed against his farm.   Go fix any bad fence you might have right away and put  brand new latch on the gate just in case a private eye is on the way to your place, good luck.