Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Am I Required To Fence In My Land So That MyCattle Do Not Wander Onto My Neighbor's Land?

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "BarbaraJ" <jbmckillip AT mesanetworks.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Am I Required To Fence In My Land So That MyCattle Do Not Wander Onto My Neighbor's Land?
  • Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 18:50:18 -0600

I was a witness in a very sad court case whereby cows got out at night, wandered on the road, caused a multi car accident in front of and on my property. There was a fatality and he died while we worked on him, with his wife and small children in the car with him. It was very messy. The owners of the land were an investment group of lawyers, ironically, and they were not the cattle owners. They were all sued. The landowners and the cattle owners. The elk had taken down the fence lines, it happens a lot, but the land owners were still accountable. No doubt because there were some deep pockets there, but still here in Colorado, which is a free range state (you fence out animals from your property) if your animals cause damages or your fencing fails and someone is dead, there will be an exchange of money and lawyers. I much prefer good, stout fences, checked on a regular basis.

Barb
Colorado
----- Original Message ----- From: "Road's End Farm" <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 12:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Am I Required To Fence In My Land So That MyCattle Do Not Wander Onto My Neighbor's Land?



On Mar 30, 2011, at 2:36 PM, Road's End Farm wrote:


On Mar 30, 2011, at 1:14 PM, Mike Rock wrote:

http://resources.lawinfo.com/en/Legal-FAQs/pet-law/new-york/am-i-required-to-fence-in-my-land-so-that-my.html

Rivka,
I am in Wisconsin. All fifty states have fence laws on the books. Here is the NY law regarding cattle. Or an opinion rendered by an attorney.

The fence in question is not 'on someone elses property'. It is the common boundary between adjoining properties.

Mike


Hi Mike,

I read that link; it says that if the person with cattle doesn't fence them in, that person can be liable if the cattle cause damage on neighboring property. (It gave only a very vague reference to a section of NY Ag and Markets law; that section covers a lot of law relating to animals, but no section title sounds as if it has anything to do with fences, and when I put "fence" into the search function I got "no results found".)

It doesn't say anything about the neighbors, whether or not they have cattle, being responsible for the costs or maintenance of half the fence. The post of yours to which I was replying said "When you or your neighbor views the fence, each is responsible for their half (right or left). Even if they don't have livestock and you do, they must maintain their half of the fence." That statement isn't supported by your cite.

I don't know whether all fifty states have fence laws on the books; but, if they do, they may well not all say the same thing.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale


addition to the above:

I couldn't tell from Wyatt's post whether the fences in question are the common boundary between properties, or whether they're entirely on his property. Maybe he said it's a boundary fence and I missed it; but in his first post, he was talking about neighbors taking down "part of my fence", not "part of our fence".

The Wisconsin law you're referring to sounds as if it applies only to fences right on the boundary.

There are also cases in which there's a dispute about where the boundary actually is. I, again, couldn't tell from Wyatt's post whether that might be part of the problem in this case; that's why I asked him.




-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



_______________________________________________
Market-farming mailing list
Market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/market-farming

Market Farming List Archives may be found here:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/market-farming/
Unsubscribe from the list here (you will need to login in with your email
address and password):
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/market-farming





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page