Opinion ID: 1806613
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Heading: The Recreational Use Statutes Affect Only Private Lands

Text: The purpose of the Recreational Use Statutes, their legislative history and the state of the law at the time of original enactment indicate that the legislature intended to confer immunity only on owners of private lands. The texts of the statutes are silent on the subjects of sovereign, state, or governmental immunity. Consequently, there being at least a reasonable doubt about the meaning of the Recreational Use Statutes on this issue, the statutes must be strictly construed as making the least rather than the most change in the preexisting general law. Accordingly, we conclude that the qualified immunity offered by the Recreational Use Statutes must be interpreted strictly as a legislated inducement granted only to the owners of large acreages of private land to open them to the public as outdoor recreational areas. As other courts and commentators have noted, many aspects of the enactment of the recreational use-immunity legislation strongly indicate that it was intended to benefit only private land owners. The history of the legislative movement indicates that it began as a response to the efforts of individual forest owners, sportsmen and conservationists who wanted to make private lands more available for recreational purposes. Copeland v. Larson, 46 Wis.2d 337, 174 N.W.2d 745 (1970); Page, The Law of Premises Liability, § 5.14 at 117 (2d ed. 1988); Comment, Landowner Liability Under the Wyoming Recreational Use Statute, 15 Land & Water L.Rev. 649, 650 (1980); Note, Torts-Statutes-Liability of Landowners to Persons Entering for Recreational Purposes, 1964 Wis.L.Rev. 705, 709 (1964). The purpose of limiting liability is explicitly stated in the commentary of the model act, from which virtually all states' acts are derived, to be that of encouraging private owners to make their land available for the recreation of the public. Goodson v. Racine, 61 Wis.2d 554, 213 N.W.2d 16 (1973); Hovet v. City of Bagley, 325 N.W.2d 813 (Minn.1982); Barrett, Good Sports and Bad Lands: The Application of Washington's Recreational Use Statute Limiting Landowner Liability, 53 Wash.L. Rev. 1, 2 (1977); Annotation, Effect of Statute Limiting Landowner's Liability for Personal Injury to Recreational User, 47 A.L.R.4th 262, 270 (1986). Indeed, the title of the section in which the suggested legislation appears is Public Recreation on Private Lands: Limitations on Liability. 24 Council of State Governments, Suggested State Legislation 150 (1965); 47 A.L.R.4th at 270; Murchison, Developments in the Law, 1985-1986Local Government Law, 47 L.L.Rev. 305, 330 n. 140 (1986). Since public lands are always acquired, and usually held, for the use of the public, it is unlikely that the legislative object in such legislation was to encourage the state to permit the people to use public property. Goodson v. City of Racine, 213 N.W.2d at 19; Ferres v. City of New Rochelle, 68 N.Y.2d 446, 510 N.Y.S.2d 57, 502 N.E.2d 972 (1986); City of Pensacola v. Stamm, 448 So.2d 39, 41 (Fla.App.1984); cf. Chapman v. Pinellas County, 423 So.2d 578 (Fla.App.1982); Metropolitan Dade County v. Yelvington, 392 So.2d 911 (Fla.App.) pet. denied, 389 So.2d 1113 (Fla.1980). It is also unlikely that any legislature, had it desired to confer immunity on the state, would do so by such an imprecise, indefinite and indistinct vehicle as the model statute promoting public recreation on private lands. Borgen v. Fort Pitt Museum Associates, 83 Pa.Commw. 207, 477 A.2d 36 (1984); see also Landry v. Board of Levee Commissioners, 477 So.2d 672, 675 (1985); Murchison, supra at 324; Malone, Louisiana Legislation of 1964: A Symposium-Torts, 25 La.L.Rev. 47 (1964). At the time of the initial enactment in most states, including Louisiana, the doctrine of sovereign immunity was a bar to suits against the state and other governmental bodies; it is therefore improbable that the legislature intended to reinforce that ancient and then firmly entrenched doctrine by means of a statute enacted to encourage landowners who might otherwise be fearful of exposure to liability to open their lands to public recreational activities. Noel v. Town of Ogunquit, 555 A.2d 1054 (Me.1989), Borgen v. Fort Pitt Museum Associates, 83 Pa.Commw. 207, 477 A.2d 36 (1984). On the other hand, most courts reaching the opposite result do so because their states' sovereign immunity statutes or torts claims acts require that the state be held to be immune whenever a similarly situated private person would be. See McCord v. Ohio Division of Parks & Recreation, 54 Ohio St.2d 72, 375 N.E.2d 50 (1978); Sublett v. United States, 688 S.W.2d 328 (Ky.1985) (applying Federal Tort Claims Act to Kentucky immunity statute); Trimblett v. State, 156 N.J.Super. 291, 383 A.2d 1146 (1977); Anderson v. City of Springfield, 406 Mass. 632, 549 N.E.2d 1127 (1990); Commonwealth Dep't of Environmental Resources v. Auresto, 511 Pa. 73, 511 A.2d 815 (1986). In those jurisdictions, the fundamental general rule is that the sovereign or the state is immune from all tort liability. But this immunity has been waived with certain exceptions or reservations. One of the reservations of immunity, usually contained in a sovereign immunity statute or a torts claims act, in essence, is that the state is to be held liable only in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances. Therefore, in those states, if a private person would be entitled to immunity under a recreational use statute, the reservation of sovereign immunity requires that the state, in a similar situation, be held immune also. Consequently, we cannot say how these courts would have interpreted the recreational use statutes in the absence of their states' torts claims acts or sovereign immunity statutes. These decisions, therefore, do not constitute authoritative interpretations of recreational use statutes at all. In Louisiana, we start with the fundamental premise that [n]either the state, a state agency, nor a political subdivision shall be immune from suit and liability in contract or for injury to a person or property. La. Constitution Art. XII, § 10(A). Louisiana does not have a sovereign immunity statute, a torts claims act or any legislative provision that equates governmental liability or immunity with that of a private person. See Robertson, Tort Liability of Governmental Units in Louisiana, 64 Tul.L. Rev. 857, 885-886 (1990). Consequently, the decisions by courts of other states construing and applying their torts claims acts and sovereign immunity laws are inapposite and unpersuasive in the present case. Construing the Recreational Use Statute strictly, for the reasons stated above, we conclude that there is at least reasonable doubt, and probably grave doubt, that the statutes were intended to apply to anyone other than private landowners. Therefore, the statutes should be given the effect which makes the least rather than the most change in the preexisting general law. Accordingly, we conclude that the Recreational Use Statutes were not intended to apply to public lands or to grant immunity to the state, its agencies or subdivisions.