§ 5-38-210 - Allowing animals into enclosures -- Division fences.
5-38-210. Allowing animals into enclosures -- Division fences.
(a) (1) (A) Any person who willfully, directly, or indirectly turns loose any horse, mule, hog, sheep, goat, domesticated cattle, or any other animal or so allow any such animal to be turned loose in any enclosure where crops of any kind are growing or have been cultivated and not gathered without the consent of all persons or their agents owning and cultivating the crops is guilty of a violation and upon conviction shall be fined not less than ten dollars ($10.00) nor more than one hundred dollars ($100).
(B) This section shall not be enforced for a trespass occurring after the close of the year in which the crop has been grown.
(2) Willfully leaving open a gate or a gap in a fence in such manner that an animal will or can enter such cultivated land when the crop is not gathered and in the year in which the crop is grown is a violation of this section and shall be punished as provided in this section.
(b) (1) When different owners or their tenants have cultivated under a common enclosure for one (1) or more years and anyone owning only a part of the land desires to avoid the penalties of this section and will put up half of a division fence by March 1 in any year and give notice in writing before January 1 preceding March 1 to the owner of the balance of the field, notifying him or her to put up the balance of the division fence, and the owner so notified fails to enclose his or her land by putting up the balance of the division fence or a fence entirely his or her own before April 1 following such notice, the person giving the notice is not liable to a penalty provided in this section for trespass that may occur on the land of the owner so notified.
(2) When a division fence is put up under a provision of this section or has existed for one (1) year or more by common consent of adjacent owners of land, no person shall break or remove the division fence or any part of the division fence without giving at least nine (9) months' notice of the intention to do so to the owner or agent of the adjoining land enclosed by the division fence, and if done without the notice, the offender shall be punished as provided in this section.
(c) It is not the purpose of this section to repeal or modify any law of enclosure now existing nor a remedy in the law of enclosure now existing nor to affect or repeal any animal statute or law nor a penalty in the animal statute or law.