Levinson

“The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat” are emotions usually associated with sports, but often follow the culmination of a lawsuit. In this case, they arose from both.

The victors in a lawsuit gathered at the cattle ranch of a prevailing party to celebrate with a barbeque. The attorney who secured the legal victory asked the hosts to allow her to ride one of their horses. After assuring them that she had ridden horses before, she saddled up on Pistol, a quarter horse trained as a cattle horse. Unable to control the horse when it later began to gallop, the attorney fell off and was injured. No novice in court, she sued her social hosts for damages. The trial court held that primary assumption of the risk defeated her claims because a person who engages in the inherently dangerous activity of horseback riding generally assumes the risk of being injured by the horse or by the careless conduct of others involved in the activity. (Knight v. Jewett (1992) 3 Cal.4th 296, 316 [ 11 Cal.Rptr.2d 2 , 834 P.2d 696 ]; e.g., Harrold v. Rolling J Ranch (1993) 19 Cal.App.4th 578, 585-588 [ 23 Cal.Rptr.2d 671 ].)

On appeal, she concedes the doctrine of primary assumption of the risk…