Legal Commentary

?Church-Owned Cow?

By Eugene Volokh

Not a phrase you hear often, but I came across it in the syllabus for Hornsby v. Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 758 P.2d 929 (Utah App. 1988): ?Motorcyclist sued church and farm workers for injuries sustained when motorcyclist attempted to avoid collision on a public highway with a church-owned cow.? But, hey, why shouldn?t a church own a cow?

The only other use of the phrase in Westlaw-accessible cases is in a later case?s discussion of Hornsby; a Google search found no results (though of course now there will be some), and a Google Books search found only the reporter volume that contains Hornsby.

UPDATE: Mark N. points out that this article mentions ?church-owned cows.? Better yet, it also speaks of a ?cow-lending project?: ?A local cow-lending project loans church-owned cows to believers, who can breed the cow three times. They can keep the second and third-born calves, but the first-born calf and the cow are returned to the project to enable another family to reap the same benefits.? A much better use for church-owned cows, I think, than providing obstacles for innocent motorcyclists.