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view the July
08 issue...
This High Court case in May cleared a vet (Randall) of
any wrong doing following a claim from Blass that the pre-purchase
vetting carried out by Randall was negligent. The claim was for a
£45,000 purchase of a dressage horse and associated keeping costs
from June 2005 totalling a further £20,000.
The facts: the horse had undergone a
bilateral neurectomy prior to purchase. This was not noted in
writing on the vetting certificate. In short, Randall claimed she
had previously told Blass about this operation. Blass claimed no
knowledge of such conversation. After purchasing the horse, it went
lame and was ruled out of competing at grand prix level dressage,
the purpose for which it had been bought.
On the face of it, initial opinion
thought this was a clear veterinary negligence claim and that
Randall should have recorded the neurectomies on the vetting
certificate. Verbal evidence is much harder to prove and so you
should always record critical pieces of information. The question
to consider is: would a significant amount of other veterinary
surgeons conducting pre-purchase vettings have acted as Randall
did? You would imagine that the majority of veterinary surgeons
would choose to cover their back and record any critical
information on a vetting.
However, on this occasion the judge
chose to focus on the characters and witness evidence of his
claimant and defendant and he found in favour of Randall. Judge
Richard Seymour QC ruled that Blass had not told the truth - the
judge believed that Blass had received verbal notification from
Randall of the bilateral neurectomy prior to purchasing the horse.
The judge formed the view that Blass “was a person well capable of
setting out to mislead others”. Whereas, the judge was very
confident that Randall is a “thoroughly competent veterinary
surgeon” who “had not fallen below the standard of ordinarily
competent veterinary surgeons”.
To save the risk of any litigation, we
would always advise vets to record in writing all critical (and not
so critical!) information on their vettings. Sadly, you have to be
less trusting of your clients. Clients must remember to fully
investigate a horse they are intending to purchase. Veterinary
negligence in relation to pre-purchase vettings is a very hard to
successfully prove, as you would need other veterinary surgeons
with equestrian vetting experience to support your claim.
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For more information or advice on any
of the issues covered above, please contact Kerry
Dovey in our Equine team.
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