NEGLIGENCE IN GROOMING A HORSE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2677, 5 July 1905, Page 50

NEGLIGENCE IN GROOMING A HORSE.

The House of Lords decided recently a case of much general importance to personsr conoerned in stable management and the hire or custody of other people's horses. "Dollar y. Greenfield" was the case. At Nisi Prius it had been tried before Mr Justice Gran-t-Lam, who may Toe accepted by the sporting world as knowing something about stable management. The facts were as follows: — Defendant jobbed) a horse from plaintiff, who is a jobmastei-. The horse, after being used in harness by defendant, was taken to defendant's stables to be groomed. These stables were in a mews open at both ends. The horse was being groomed in the open, when it escaped 1 , reached the street, and got damaged. Plaintiff contended that there had been negligence in inefficiently securing the horse while it was groomed, and claimed damages. The jury took his viewon the question of fact, and the judge gave judgment accordingly. Th© Court of Appeal reversed this ruling, holding that there had been no evidence of negligence on which to base the finding of the jury. The House of Lords now reverse the Court of Appeal, ana iwfeore Mr Justice Grantham's judgment. They held that the open ends of the mews and failure to secure the horse firmly while groomed in the open were facts upon which the- jury would have been justified in finding that there had been negligence. The defence relied mainly upon evidence of common practice to groom and wash horses outside stable doors And

not in thevn. There does not seem to have been any evidence either way as to whether rough, unskilful, or ill-tempered grooming had tended to cause the horse to brealk away while under the groom's care. It is well known that some hordes are more sensitive than others to the friction, of brush and currycomb; we also know (says the Field) that not all grooms are equally careful and considerate when handling a horse of this temperament, or can control their own tempers if such a horse prove fractious. But" anyhow, if restiveness is ii any way contributed to by unskilful grooming, such a statistic is a factor towards the question of negligence which a jury may take into consideration. It is true that, the ordinary London mews does not provide a washing shed, duly fenced in, and that a jobmaster would be aware of the fact when bargaining the figure for a job ; but even this fact would appear still to cast on the bailee of the horse an onus of adequately securing the animal while it was being 1 groomed in a place that giave acces3 to the adjacent thoroughfares. On the whole, the jury seem to have had before them all pros and eons in the matter, and to have found negligence upon facts which were capable of being reasonably construed in that direction. From this point of view an owner nf horses would be inclined to assent to the ruling of the Hou?e of Lords that tho jury had facts before them to justify their opinion and verdict. It is not often, that a case of such minor importance, involving damages well under £200. and not a test case promoted by a society, finds its way as high as our supremo tribunal.