Horse Sale Legalities with Attorney- Rives White

Attorney Rives White of Cowboy Legal, LLC, shares some insight to the legalities of the horse world, specifically selling horses. While Rives owns his own law firm he is also an avid horseman;  team roper, cow horse competitor, breeder and veterinarian’s husband. After 12 years of being a licensed Attorney and growing up right in the middle of the horse industry Rives knows a thing or two. 

In short: CYA (cover your a$$), being honest and having good communication goes a long ways in most situations. However for good measures we dug a little deeper into a handful of subjects to educate our followers. 

“It all  works until it doesn't. And that's where you learn. It's where we all learn. Somebody famous made the quote, and I'm probably going to butcher this, but something to the effect of wisdom comes from bad experience and bad experience comes from bad judgment. Basically, you’ve got to screw up to learn and then you learn what not to do. And so, quote, legalities of life, paperwork, business, name changes, for the most part, everything works because everybody knows the order of operations, if you will.” -White

*Will Rogers is credited with the actual saying of “Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.”

On the Topic of a General Horse Selling/ Purchasing Deal: 

“Realistically if you're buying or selling a horse, so from both perspectives, as both buyer, seller and auction company-so three parties- as far as the sale company generally all they're doing is being an agent for the seller. They're essentially playing middleman saying I'll help you sell this horse. The sale company is bringing to market and providing a marketplace that is theoretically the reason the sale company is more advantageous than you or me doing it personally. That's why Big Sky Horse Sales exists. You have the following, you have theoretically, more viewers more potential buyers than me personally, you personally or tom dick or harry down the street right? And as long as a sale company limits their role to that as far as seller gives them paperwork, the description, videos, photos, radiographs, pre-purchase, whatever it might be, as long as the sale company is just essentially wholly a middleman that says, we'll help you sell, that's the extent of the sale company's role.

 Where the issues happen is when, and I'm sure this is what you've seen, where a seller represents a horse as something that theoretically is not what they've been represented. So as a seller, you always want to make sure you fully disclose what you know, history or otherwise. If you're gonna sell the horse as sound, he better be sound and not three years ago have had a navicular issue. Not three years ago, you had this horse to the vet for a potential navicular and radiographs were taken, maybe some OSFOS or something. If that's in there, if that's in the history- just acknowledge there's a history. Because the buyer is relying on that description and they are buying and theoretically paying money for, in this example, a sound horse with no known history of lameness. And if they figure out that there was a history of lameness that wasn't disclosed, guess what? That leads to problems. 

And so sellers have to disclose. As a buyer, personally, if I'm looking, I realize a horse can be dead tomorrow, right? Just like we all can. 

And what's sound today might not be sound tomorrow. 

So as a buyer, I think there's got to be some recognition that, yes, this is a history. Yes, it all checks out. Yes, pre-purchase is good. Theoretically, you've ridden the horse, know the horse, know the seller or something. But I'm going to take it all with a grain of salt. And if somebody's really worried about it, man, insure them. 

At the end of the day, sellers need to disclose and do so honestly. Buyers, you… obviously want that in writing anything that's promised or otherwise- make sure it's in writing. And personally, I take things for the grain of salt.” -White

What is Considered Written Disclosure/ Proof

Does that Facebook description or online post count as written proof?

“The online description, the catalog description, if you will, is sufficient to be held to the seller if the seller wrote that. So essentially, if I'm selling a horse on Big Sky, if I type up a description, say, hey, three-year-old mare by XYZ, here's the stuff. I email you, here's the description, here's papers, here's photos. As long as that came from me, I'm held to that as the seller. As long as you as the auction company do not alter anything, you remain a middleman that has essentially no liability

So it does not have to be a signed statement. It doesn't have to be sworn. It doesn't have to be notarized.” -White

Once The Deal is Done

The buyer asks all the right questions, all known information is disclosed, test rides the horse, proceeds with purchasing the horse, money is exchanged and the horse changes ownership. The deal is done. What grounds does the buyer have on returns after this point? 

“In the scenario that nothing was written and I buy a horse from you, man, the basics are it's sold as is, whereas it's like buying a used car. You buy what you see. And if the buyer wants to come back and say, well, this horse was supposed to be sound. And the seller says, well, show me where I told you that. That is very much a he said, she said. Most, depending on the specifics of the case, the buyer is going to have to prove by preponderance of the evidence generally, which means more likely than not that the seller theoretically guaranteed this horse sound. If nothing's in writing, how do you meet that burden? They can't. I think it's very hard. 

As a buyer, you should know that, especially if you're buying something without guarantee, without pre-purchase, without any history, even, you know, a horse goes through the sale barn that pretend it’s not a catalog sale and it's loose pin or otherwise, you don't know anything about that horse. There might be a reason it's there. You are buying knowing there's probably an issue…

So let's pretend everything is in writing. Seller says, Hey, this horse has got XYZ history. Here's what we've used him for. Here's what this horse has done. He's good. It can be good for whatever the intended purpose is. And it's in writing and buyer buys on that. 

If seller sells as sound and has the pre-purchase and radiographs and anything else that was part of a pre-purchase, flexions, whatever, if that's all on paper and it's got a background and a vet checked it out and buyer says, well, this horse doesn't sound, buyer's going to have to figure out how to prove that horse wasn't sound.” -White

Which is good to know because I feel like with Facebook and even platforms like ours, there are more horses than ever selling online. So keep in mind; if you wrote certain guarantees in your ad that are not actually true- that is on you as a seller. 

Taking a Bad One to a Sale

Rives shares a scenario where a buyer purchased a horse from an auction company. Buyer loves the horse, everything is great until the horse soon comes up lame. A local vet diagnosed it as navicular. Long story short: the horse was treated for navicular prior to the sale however the seller did not disclose any of this to the auction company. The seller in turn ended with a civil judgment for the price of the horse, plus attorney fees and other major headaches all trying to cover up the truth. 

Which brings up a good point to consignors- do not try to pin your troubled horse on a sale company. And buyers- be sure to do your homework. 

If you take just one thing from this blog… Just be honest. 

General Equine Business Advice 

We asked Rives what his best advice for other equine related business owners would be. 

“CYA and have a conversation with somebody so you know what you're getting into.”

“Plan. Have some planning of some nature. Failure to plan is a plan to fail. Uh, especially for business, um, business or, or families, ag, ag in general, which loops in horses, cattle. So failure to plan is, is a plan to fail, um, communicate and talk. You might not like the answers. You might learn something, but talk. Everybody will know where they stand much better than silence. Silence is not golden.”-White

Listen to the whole conversation on The Andersen Show Podcast- Episode 9 Legalities with Cowboy Legal- Aired wherever you listen to podcasts or theandersenshow.com