Escaped Cow Case Moves Forward.

This case involves the defendant's cow that escaped from its pen and was hit by a cattle truck on a state highway in western Kansas.  The case was initially filed in Federal District Court in Colorado, but that court (Sage v. Bird City Dairy, LLC, No. 12-cv-02985-RBJ, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51056 (D. Colo. Apr. 8, 2013)) determined that Colorado lacked personal jurisdiction over the defendant due to lack of contact with Colorado.  However, the court transferred the case to Kansas rather than dismissing it because the statute of limitations would have run if the plaintiff had to refile, and the plaintiff's claims were colorable, and there was an absence of bad faith in choosing to file suit in Colorado.  The Kansas court denied the defendant's motion for summary judgment because the plaintiff raised genuine issues of material fact as to how the cow escaped based on circumstantial evidence and that the evidence supported an inference that workers on the defendant's premises that day were the defendant's agents.  While the cows in the enclosure had never been seen on the roadway before, there was evidence that they had escaped the enclosure in the past.  In addition, there was evidence to support a finding that a third party's employees that hauled manure from the defendant's premises, and were the last parties to enter and exit the cows' enclosure, were the defendant's agents insomuch as the defendant's operating manager directed and supervised them.  Sage v. Bird City Dairy, LLC, No. 13-4039-KHV, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55785 (D. Kan. Apr. 29, 2015).