Owners of animals that are involved in collisions with vehicles on public roadways may face not only the loss of the animal, but also a lawsuit.
Brian Smiley, spokesman for Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation, said the key word in all issues of liability is negligence.
“Let’s be clear. There has to be some form of negligence in our opinion, whether it is a horse, cow or steer that gets hit by one of our vehicles,” Smiley said.
He said after such incidents, MPI will conduct an investigation based on RCMP report and other information to determine how the animal ended up on the road.
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“If it’s determined that there may be some negligence, then one of our options,… is that we can file a suit against the particular owner to recover our costs,” said Smiley. He added that if the horses knocked down a fence because they got spooked, or vandals cut the fence, for example, that probably can’t be considered negligence.
Smiley said lawsuits are not commonly pursued, but have sometimes been the option taken by the insurer in the past as it works to keep vehicle insurance rates low for all its customers.
“We haven’t done it a lot, but certainly we have done it in the past.”
