HARTFORD -- Scuppy wasn't on trial before the state Supreme Court on Tuesday, but he became the poster horse in a controversial case that could result in higher insurance rates for the owners of the state's 50,000 horses.

In a hearing that cited case law as far back as 1699 -- and, in particular, a 1912 case in New Haven -- lawyers for a Milford farmer warned that hundreds of years of horse ownership could be changed if the high court rules that the animals are naturally vicious.

But the attorneys for a man whose son was bitten by Scuppy at Timothy Astriab's Glendale Farms in May 2006 told the six-judge panel that the man merely wants the case sent back to the Superior Court level, where the liability case can proceed on its merits.

During an hour-long hearing, Hartford attorney Steven L. Seligman said that the horse had no history of biting when Anthony Vendrella Sr., who was at the farm buying plants, held up his young son, who was bitten on the cheek by Scuppy from behind a 5-foot fence.

Astriab told Hearst Connecticut Newspapers on Monday that the Vendrella family could not positively identify which one of Astriab's horses bit the boy.

"We didn't have any evidence of the actual vicious propensity of horses in general, or this particular horse," Seligman said. "We should not overly burden people who keep animals of great utility. Until you know a horse poses a risk, there should be no liability. If we have to warn everyone about everything, we effectively warn nobody about anything."

New Haven attorney Hugh D. Hughes, whose appeal of a lower court ruling was upheld by the state Appellate Court, said Glendale Farms' warning signage was inadequate and there should have been additional fencing.

"It all goes to inadequate restraint of the horse," Hughes told the high court, recalling that as the father looked away briefly, the horse stretched over the fence and bit out a piece of the boy's cheek.

"They needed to keep people away entirely."

The state Superior Court originally ruled that the harm to the child was not foreseeable and that Vendrella could not prove that Scuppy had a tendency to bite.

Vendrella took the case to the Appellate Court, where he won when jurists there ruled that there was a question whether the farm provided proper notice of the horse's propensity for nipping.

The 1912 case involved a horse hitched to a wagon in New Haven on a public road. But Seligman said that a road is different from private property.

"The horse in this case was behind a fence on the defendant's property," Seligman said. "It wasn't left to roam free or on a public highway."

Hughes argued that Glendale Farms was also a public place since it sold plants and an employee essentially allowed Vendrella and his son to visit Scuppy.

With eyes set back on the sides of their heads, horses cannot see what's right ahead of them and so they sniff -- or nip -- to find out what's there, Hughes acknowledged.

"If the horse can't see what's directly in front of them, how does that line up to a propensity of viciousness?" asked Justice Andrew J. McDonald.

Hughes responded that he wanted to show in the lower court that horses "will typically nip." Hughes said he was not asking the court to determine all horses are "vicious."

"There is not going to be some general rule about horses that will come out of this case," declared Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers. She warned that Seligman was "wildly overstating" the potential ramifications of the case.

A 2005 study by the American Horse Council Foundation found that Connecticut is the third-densest state in the nation for horses with more than 51,000.

After the hearing, Lori Vogel, one of about 100 spectators who attended the hearing, said if Vendrella wins, she's sure that various kinds of insurance she and other horse owners carry will require higher premiums.

"We're becoming a society where you can't do anything," said Vogel, who owns 10 horses on 25 acres in Middlefield.
