Texas High Court Reaffirms
State's "Free Range" Status

AUSTIN — The Texas Supreme Court has reaffirmed the state's "free-range" law regarding livestock confinement, a ruling greeted with relief — a perhaps a certain degree of surprise — by industry groups.

Both the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and the Texas Cattle Feeders Association filed friend of the court briefs in the case and are applauding the April 1 decision.

The case arose out of an Upshur County accident in which a car driven by Shannon Jackson collided on FM 49 with a horse owned by Naomi Gibbs. The wreck injured Jackson, totaled her car and killed the horse. Jackson sued Gibbs, contending she had negligently failed to maintain the fence around her pasture and thus failed to prevent the horse from venturing onto the road.

Gibbs' defense was that the collision occurred on a farm-to-market road in a "free range" area, thus she owed no legal duty to keep the horse off the road.

The trial jury found for Jackson, awarding her $7000 and costs, and an appeals court agreed.

Gibbs took the case to the state Supreme Court, which reversed the lower rulings.

The high court ruled that "with its policy-making authority, the Legislature has considered fence and livestock restraint laws for virtually every type of roadway over which it has jurisdiction.

"It is noteworthy," the court continued, "that the Legislature has specifically excluded farm-to-market roads from such regulation. We think it unwise in this instance for the Court to erect barriers that the Legislature has declined to impose.

"Similarly," the court wrote, "citizens of Upshur County have, through separate elections, adopted local stock laws in areas of the county ... Those citizens, who know far more about their roads and livestock than we do, apparently have deemed it unnecessary to adopt such a law for the road adjacent to Gibbs' pasture. We decline in this instance to impose on them a duty which they have declined to self-impose."

(Our federal courts, legislators and regulatory agencies could learn a few things about proper governance from the Texas Supreme Court, it appears. When was the last time any level of federal government declined to meddle in local affairs? — Ed.)

TSCRA president J. Mark McLaughlin, San Angelo, said the opinion was exactly what his organization had asked for in its brief. The original rulings, he noted, "would have created a new common-law duty to keep all livestock off of public highways because of 'modern traffic conditions.'"