Opinion ID: 2614599
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Was Jury Instruction Number 23 erroneous?

Text: The State argues that the trial court improperly included the last sentence in Jury Instruction Number 23. The instruction read: Plaintiff's cause of action against the State is based upon and must meet the requirements of the law relating to the liability of a landowner for a dangerous condition of property. Before the plaintiff may be entitled to your verdict against the State under this law, you must find from a preponderance of the evidence: First: That the Big Lake North Recreation Site, and specifically the swimming area at the recreation site, was in a dangerous condition on May 31, 1993; Second: That the injury of which plaintiff complains was proximately caused by the dangerous condition; Third: That the injury occurred in a way which was reasonably foreseeable as a consequence of the dangerous condition of the property; and Fourth: That the dangerous condition had existed for a sufficient period of time or was so obvious, or both, that the State should have discovered and eliminated it. The State had a duty to make reasonable inspections. (Emphasis added.) The State argues that the trial court misstated the law because the instruction implied that the State had the duty to inspect each and every piece of remote land it owns. Implicit in the duty to discover and eliminate hidden dangers of a sufficient duration, which is set out in the Fourth part of Instruction 23, is the duty to make reasonable inspections. Thus the last sentence of the instruction did not impose a new duty on the State. As the propriety of the earlier part of the instruction is not challenged, the final sentence cannot be considered error. Nor do we believe that the final sentence was error in the context of this case. We do not have here undifferentiated public land which people may utilize for recreational pursuits only at their own risk. In Kooly v. State, 958 P.2d 1106 (Alaska 1998), we held that the State did not owe a duty of care to sledders who used state rights-of-way as sledding hills. We noted that although the hill where the accident occurred was commonly used for sledding, the State had not formally dedicated the sledding hill as a recreational area. Id. at 1109. We also observed that it was not possible to make the thousands of miles of state rights-of-way adjacent to highways safe for sledding. Id. Here, by contrast, the area in question was roped off for swimming and was part of a state recreation area. In Moloso v. State, 644 P.2d 205, 219 (Alaska 1982), a case involving a state construction area, we observed that landowners have a duty to warn entering persons of hidden dangers of which the entering persons are unaware. Implicit in this duty is a duty to inspect for hidden dangers. Such a duty should properly apply to designated use areas like the swimming area involved in this case.