INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Court of Appeals has ordered a new trial in the civil case of a man seriously injured when the vehicle he was driving crashed into a cow that escaped from a Jasper County farm.

In July 2022, Eliseo Montelongo, of Fair Oaks, was involved in a collision with a cow in his 2007 Chevy Tahoe on County Road 700 North near County Road 1000 West.

According to court documents, the cow was one of six head of cattle that escaped their enclosure on a farm owned by Dan Sipkema.

Three months later, Montelongo sued, alleging negligence on the part of a then-87-year-old Sipkema, who owned up to 30 cattle on his farm.

Montelongo sought monetary damages for medical expenses, lost employment along with pain and suffering from injuries described in his court filings as “permanent” and “severe.”

According to court documents, the cows were confined to a barn by a cattle gate but six of them, using their heads, lifted the gate off the bottom hinge, creating an opening wide enough for them to escape.

After the last cow escaped, the gate fell back down and was secured by a locking mechanism preventing the other cows from potentially wandering away.

Montelongo alleged the defendant should have known there was a chance of the cows escaping after a daughter on her farm had sheep and cows escape years ago from nudging under the same type of gate with their heads.

As a result, he claimed Sipkema should have placed pins or some other device on the hinge side of the gate to further secure it as a precaution.

The evidence shows his daughter also did not have reinforcements added to her gate.

In March, the trial court ruled in favor of Sipkema, saying there was no reason for him to presume his cows were not secured properly.

In his ruling, Judge Russell Bailey said the cattle gate was designed specifically for the purpose of securing cattle and none of his cows had ever escaped before from the same gate.

Even though his daughter had cattle escape, Bailey said the conversations with her were about “a different gate and different cows. A generalized statement about a third-party experience does not give rise to a material issue of fact in the present case. Therefore, it was not foreseeable to the defendant that the animals would escape that enclosure.”

In ordering a new trial, the appellate court judges on Oct. 9 cited the testimony of a veteran herdsman from another farm, who felt an additional mechanism that did not come with the gate should have been placed on it.

According to appellate court documents, the herdsman said it’s “not uncommon or surprising” for cattle to nudge gates off their hinges when they’re not equipped with additional security devices.

Before the accident, Sipkema still owned the cattle and property but transferred the duties on the farm to another daughter, Norma Devries, over a dozen years ago.