Taylor v. Wachter
| Decision Date | 20 May 2022 |
| Docket Number | 124,107 |
| Citation | 508 P.3d 1293 (Table) |
| Parties | Susan TAYLOR, Appellant, v. William WACHTER, as Special Administrator for the Estate of Joan Eileen Warner Hough, Appellee. |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Angela Spigarelli and Fred Spigarelli, of The Spigarelli Law Firm, of Pittsburg, for appellant.
Richard P. Billings and Craig C. Blumreich, of Larson & Blumreich, Chartered, of Topeka, for appellee.
Before Powell, P.J., Green, J., and Richard B. Walker, S.J.
In 2010, Susan Taylor fell from a trailer while vaccinating and deworming Joan Eileen Warner Hough's horses. The fall resulted in a severe right leg injury, and Taylor sued Hough, alleging negligence. Eventually, the district court granted Hough's motion for summary judgment, finding that no genuine issues of material fact existed. The district court rejected Taylor's claim that Hough failed to exercise reasonable care under all the circumstances by failing to maintain a safe and secure facility or method used to vaccinate and deworm the horses because Taylor engaged in an activity with obvious dangers, and the alleged defects on Hough's property did not contribute to her fall from the trailer. The district court also deemed Taylor an independent contractor under the circumstances and concluded Hough had no duty to provide a safe working environment. The district court also rejected Taylor's second negligence claim regarding Hough's alleged failure to warn her about the wild nature of the horses, finding that Taylor had previous experience dealing with wild horses and observed the apparent wild nature of the horses before voluntarily engaging in the activity that led to her injury. Finally, the district court found that Taylor's claims were barred by the Domestic Animal Activity Doctrine. See K.S.A. 60-4001 et seq.
Taylor appeals, arguing the district court erred by granting summary judgment. We affirm the district court's grant of Hough's motion for summary judgment because there are no material factual disputes, and the district court correctly determined Taylor could not recover under her alleged theories of negligence.
In 2010, Joan Eileen Warner Hough owned two farms and a veterinary clinic. She lived on one of her farms located outside the city limits of Coffeyville, approximately 12 miles away from her veterinary clinic. At the veterinary clinic, Hough served as the only veterinarian but hired one or two other employees to assist her around the office. As a veterinarian, she dealt almost exclusively with smaller animals, such as dogs, cats, and a few exotic animals. But on her personal farm, she raised horses as a personal hobby and had done so for many decades. Hough believed she had approximately 29 horses in 2010. Those horses were not part of her veterinary practice.
By May 2010, Susan Taylor had worked as a part-time veterinary assistant in Hough's veterinary clinic for approximately three months. While employed there, she answered the telephone, received patients, checked patients out, and generally assisted Hough around the clinic. Her job duties never required her to leave the veterinary clinic. As such, she had never been to Hough's residence, though her husband had been there a few times to assist Hough in taking care of Hough's horses.
Hough said she asked Taylor and her husband to come to her house because she learned through conversations at the clinic that Taylor and her husband had their own horses and had a lot of experience dealing with horses. Like Taylor, Hough said only Taylor's husband went to her house the first few times to assist with the horses. But on May 2, 2010, both Taylor and her husband went to Hough's residence to assist with vaccinating and deworming Hough's horses. Though she did not want to go, Taylor said Hough repeatedly asked her to do so, and Taylor felt she would lose her job if she did not go. Taylor's husband never mentioned anything about Taylor getting fired, but he said he could tell Taylor did not want to go to Hough's residence on May 2, 2010. However, Taylor acknowledged that Hough never threatened to fire her if she did not go. Taylor also acknowledged that she did not go to Hough's residence in her capacity as Hough's veterinary assistant.
Before going to Hough's residence, Taylor never asked Hough anything about the horses they would be interacting with. Taylor did not know how many horses needed vaccinating or the demeanor of the horses. Even so, Taylor did not have any concerns about her physical ability to perform the work because she had worked with horses—including vaccinating and deworming them—for over 30 years. During that span of time, Taylor at all times owned between one and five horses. Similarly, her husband had extensive experience with horses, including vaccinating and deworming them.
When Taylor and her husband arrived at Hough's residence on May 2, 2010, the first thing they did was go behind Hough's house and inspect the area where they would be working. Taylor said her husband had concerns about the condition of the fences in the pen where the horses were being contained. He also had concerns about the lack of a squeeze chute on that portion of the property, but he knew Hough had a squeeze chute on a different portion of the property. A squeeze chute is a device used to control an animal's head and sides to ensure the horse will not strike with its feet or kick someone while the person is performing the vaccination and deworming procedure. Initially, there were 10 to 20 horses in the pen.
Hough would prepare the shots and hand them to Taylor, who would then give them to her husband so he could vaccinate and deworm the horses. When vaccinating the horses, Taylor or her husband would put a syringe in the horses' necks and inject the medicine. Similarly, to deworm the horses, they placed a paste wormer, which looked like a syringe, inside the horses' mouths and shot the medicine inside so the horses would swallow it. The vaccines were administered before the deworming medicine.
For the first batch of horses, Taylor's husband went inside the pen and placed halters on the horses' heads to be able to control their head movements. The halter had a lead rope attached, which was analogous to a dog leash and allowed Taylor's husband to lead the horses to a horse trailer attached to Hough's pickup truck after administering the medicine. All the horses did not fit inside the trailer, so Taylor and her husband took four horses at a time. They then drove the trailer to a different portion of the property where they turned the horses loose in the pasture. In total, Taylor estimated this process took about four hours. They had no problems with the first batch of horses.
After unloading the last trailer of the first batch of horses, Taylor and her husband returned to the pen, and Taylor thought they were done for the day. However, Hough then called between 10 to 20 more horses into the pen. Taylor could immediately tell that this batch of horses was much more nervous and wilder than the first batch. She knew the second batch had not had much human contact, which concerned her. Similarly, her husband also noticed the second batch of horses seemed rowdier than the first and did not appear to have had much human contact. According to Taylor, her husband then told Hough they needed to take a break, finish the process on a different day, or move to the area of the property with the squeeze chute. But Hough told them she wanted them to finish all the horses that day and did not want to move to a different area of the property.
Hough could not recall this conversation, but she said she would never have put any of the horses inside the squeeze chute because the one she had was made for cattle. She said the cattle squeeze chute was too small, too short, and not wide enough to fit the horses, and she did not want to risk getting the horses injured by putting them in that type of chute. She said she had never put any of her horses inside the squeeze cute when they got vaccinated and dewormed.
At that point Taylor's husband devised an alternative plan to vaccinate and deworm the second batch of horses. His plan involved loading the horses into the trailer. The trailer measured approximately 16 feet long and could fit 4 horses inside at a time. The trailer also had a divider on the inside, and two horses stood on each side of the divider. After loading the first four horses, they closed the trailer's back door. In theory, this placement of the horses inside the trailer allowed their movements to be restricted, which would make them easier to handle. Taylor's husband then used rope to secure the horses' heads against the side of the trailer. After he secured the rope, Taylor would stand on the trailer's running boards/fenders and vaccinate and deworm the horses. Once again, Hough prepared the shots and handed them to Taylor. The trailer had fenders on both sides. The width of the fenders on which Taylor stood measured a little less than a foot. Taylor, who wore size five or six shoes, said her feet fit comfortably on the fenders. The fenders were approximately 3 feet off the ground.
Taylor's husband said he had used this method to vaccinate and deworm horses "100,000 times" and found it to be a normal and safe way to do it. When he previously used this method, he said someone always stood on the fenders to administer the vaccinations and deworming medicine. Taylor also said she had used this process once or twice before. But when she had previously used this process, the horses were not as wild as this second batch of Hough's horses.
On this occasion, Taylor started with the two horses facing the driver's side of the trailer and did not have any problems with those horses. She then moved to the passenger's side to vaccinate and deworm the horses near the back of the trailer. Again, she waited for her husband to secure the rope around the horses' necks before she climbed on the...
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