Under Oregon’s open range law, a ranch isn’t liable for its cattle causing a car accident on an interstate highway, according to the state’s Court of Appeals.

The appellate court has affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a driver and passenger who blamed Meadow Acres Angus Ranch in the Eastern Oregon town of Echo for a 2019 collision on Interstate 84 in Umatilla County.

“Because defendant owed no duty to plaintiffs under Oregon’s open range law, plaintiffs’ negligence claim against Meadow Acres failed, and Meadow Acres was entitled to prevail as a matter of law,” the appellate ruling said.

Another state law that prohibits people from “herding, driving and pasturing” livestock on highways doesn’t apply because the cattle wandered into traffic of their own volition, the ruling said.

“Those words clearly require an intention to have the animal within the right of way itself,” but there’s “no dispute that Meadow Acres did not intentionally place its cows on Interstate 84,” the ruling said.

In open range areas, livestock are allowed to roam freely and landowners must fence them out to protect private property.

Within livestock districts, the owner of the animals required to keep them contained.

Open range laws are common in Western states, where the vast landscape was historically sparsely inhabited, but restrictions such as livestock districts were imposed with the invention of barbed wire and growing population density.

Among Oregon counties, three consist entirely of open range, 10 are totally within livestock districts, and 23 contain both open range and livestock districts.

In this case, the ranch was pasturing livestock in an open range area near I-84 but kept the cattle fenced, according to court documents. At about 11:30 pm on Sept. 26, 2019, several cows escaped the enclosure and at least one was hit by the plaintiffs’ Chevrolet Suburban.

More than a year later, the vehicle’s driver, Jesica

Galligher, and passenger,

Roxanne Stout, filed a lawsuit alleging the collision “caused major damage” that forced

the vehicle “to be towed from the scene.”

The complaint alleged both plaintiffs “experience daily constant, sharp, shooting back, shoulder and neck pain with stiffness and dizziness,” as well as spinal problems for which they received medical treatment.

The plaintiffs argued the car accident and their injuries were “the foreseeable result of the negligence of defendant Meadow Acres Angus Ranch” and sought compensation for $40,000 in medical bills, $50,000 for pain and suffering and $5,000 for vehicle damage.

In 2022, Umatilla County Circuit Judge Eva Temply dismissed the claims against the ranch, concluding that open range law can impose some restrictions — against bulls running at large, for example — but those didn’t apply under the circumstances.

“The court assumes that if the legislature had intended livestock owners to be held liable for cattle escaping onto the interstate, it could have and would have used specific language forbidding persons from allowing or permitting livestock to enter the interstate right of way,” the judge said.

The Oregon Court of Appeals has now upheld that decision and ruled in favor of the ranch, which previously won more than $8,400 in litigation expenses as the prevailing party in the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs had objected to the award of attorney fees and costs, but the judge rejected the arguments because they had “no legal basis” for suing the ranch.