The case has something in common with one settled at a disputes tribunal hearing in Gisborne last week.
A Gisborne man successfully sued a farmer for more than $5000 after his car was written off when it hit a calf.
Alison Lambert, the head chef at No 7 Balmac, a part-time teacher and mother-of-three, said she was considering legal action against the sharemilker in charge of the herd.
The crash had been a "nightmare" made worse by the sharemilker not accepting liability, she said.
But the sharemilker, Ben Davie, said the calves were startled and had escaped through a fence and over a cattle-stop on to the road.
The fencing was intact, he said.
"It was an accident. I am upset, too.
"We are in the business of rearing and milking calves and we don't want accidents like that. But it is just one of those things."
Mrs Lambert left Dunedin International Airport about 8.45pm recently and was driving her Subaru Legacy station wagon along Centre Rd in a 100kmh zone.
She believes she was driving about 80kmh, and came across about 12 animals "right there in the middle of the road".
"I braked, but I couldn't do anything else but smash into them. They fell over like skittles. It was just like a nightmare."
She got out of her badly damaged car to find the collision had killed four of the calves and others were badly injured.
"There was nothing I could do. I just had to watch it happen."
The sharemilker said he had passed the complaint on to his insurance company, Tower Insurance, which had decided he was not liable.
A Tower Insurance rural section team member said when contacted the company could not comment on individual cases.
The team member referred inquiries to head office, but said head office would have no details of the case.
Mrs Lambert said she had to pay the excess on her insurance to get the car roadworthy.
The insurance payout would be insufficient to replace the car, Mrs Lambert said.
Dunedin City Council animal control team leader Ros MacGill said in the year to June 30 animal control officers attended 295 incidents involving stock wandering on roads.
