§ 25-21,251.Equine activities; liability and claims; limitations.

This is the operative liability limit at the center of Nebraska’s Equine Activity Liability Act. It works in two directions at once. First, an equine activity sponsor, an equine professional, or any other person — including a corporation, limited liability company, or partnership — is not liable for a participant’s injury or death resulting from the inherent risks of equine activities. Second, and just as important, no participant and no participant’s representative may bring a claim, maintain an action, or recover from any of those same people or entities for injury, loss, damage, or death resulting from those inherent risks.

The reach of this bar depends entirely on the definitions in section 25-21,250: whether the injury flowed from an “inherent risk of equine activities” as that section defines the phrase — an equine’s unpredictable behavior, terrain hazards, collisions, or a participant’s own negligence in handling the animal. Injuries traceable to those causes fall inside the immunity.

But the immunity has a stated opening line: “except as provided in section 25-21,252.” That cross-reference matters. The liability limit in this section does not stand alone; it operates subject to the specific carve-outs the next section lists, covering things like defective equipment, a sponsor’s failure to assess a participant’s or equine’s suitability, hidden dangerous conditions, reckless conduct, and intentional injury.