Opinion ID: 764970
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Recreational Purpose

Text: 56 The HRUS defines recreational purpose as including hunting, fishing, swimming, boating, camping, picnicking, hiking, pleasure driving, nature study, water skiing, winter sports, and viewing or enjoying historical, archaeological, scenic, or scientific sites. Haw. Rev. Stat. 520-2(3). Howard was engaged in the activity of boating, an activity explicitly included in the definition of recreational purpose. 57 Howard argues, however, that she was not engaging in a recreational activity while taking the sailing course. She claims that the sailing course was a professional-level course for persons who either were, or wished to become, professional sailing instructors; that she did not interpret the course as recreation because she interpreted MWR's encouragement of her attendance as an actual requirement that she do so; and that she hoped to use this training professionally in the future. In other words, Howard wants us to examine her subjective intent in taking the course and engaging in the activity of boating to determine whether it was recreational. Her authority for this approach is an unpublished order of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii, Chadwick v. United States, No. 91-00138 (D. Haw. Oct. 19, 1993) (order denying Government's motion for summary judgment). 58 In Chadwick, the plaintiff was injured while taking a shortcut across Government property on the way to a concert. The property where the concert was being held was adjacent to the Government's property. The court held that although attending the concert was recreational, the plaintiff's route across Government property to get to the concert was not. Id. at 10-11. Therefore, the court held, the Government was not immune under the HRUS. Id. at 11. Howard relies on a single line from Chadwick to support her argument: The relevant focus in determining if the statute is applicable is on the intent of the user, rather than of the landowner. Id. at 10. 59 Howard's reliance on Chadwick is misplaced. First, Chadwick is inapplicable. The issue in Chadwick was ingress and egress, where a person is injured not on the property where the recreational activity has or will take place, but traveling to or from this property. See id. The HRUS's application to ingress or egress is not before us. Howard was actually engaged in recreational activity at the time of her injury. 60 Second, at least where ingress and egress are not at issue, to determine whether a landowner will be immune from liability under a recreational use statute, the proper focus is on the landowner's intent. For example, in Gaeta v. Seattle City Light, 54 Wash. App. 603, 774 P.2d 1255, 1258 (Wash. Ct. App. 1989), the plaintiff was injured while crossing a roadway on a dam. He argued that his use was commercial and not recreational because he crossed the dam to reach a resort where he could purchase gasoline for his motorcycle. Id. The court stated: We find the proper approach in deciding whether or not the recreational use act applies is to view it from the standpoint of the landowner or occupier. If [the landowner] has brought himself within the terms of the statute, then it is not significant that a person coming onto the property may have some commercial purpose in mind. By opening up the lands for recreational use without a fee, [the landowner] has brought itself under the protection of the immunity statute, and it therefore is immaterial that [the plaintiff] may have driven across the dam in search of gasoline at the resort. 61 Accordingly, we find that the recreational use act applies to the [landowner's] properties involved in this accident. 62 Id. (emphasis added). 63 Similarly, in the present case, the Government has opened up its property at Hickam Harbor for recreational use without a fee. The activity of boating that Howard was undisputedly involved in falls within the HRUS's definition of recreational activity. That Howard may have had a professional motive in enrolling in the sailing course is not relevant to the inquiry. See id.; see also Palmer, 945 F.2d at 1136-37 (rejecting plaintiff's argument that he was engaged in the nonrecreational activity of supervising his grandchildren while they were swimming and that the recreational statute did not apply because he was not permitted to use the swimming pool); Silingo v. Village of Mukwonago, 156 Wis. 2d 536, 458 N.W.2d 379, 382 (Wis. Ct. App.) (rejecting a subjective test for determining whether an activity is recreational because it would not serve the goal of the recreational use statute); but see Casas, 19 F. Supp. 2d at 1107 (Because [the recreational use statute] applies when the person using the land has a recreational purpose, and not when the landowner has such a purpose, it applies in this case where the plaintiff came onto defendant's land for the recreational purpose of running in a race.). 64 Holding that it is the landowner's intent that controls whether the recreational use statute applies in this situation furthers the purpose of the HRUS of encouraging landowners to make land and water areas available to the public for recreational purposes. See Haw. Rev. Stat. 520-1. As the Government points out: If land owners were required to screen each individual entering their property to ensure that each and every person had a proper recreational purpose so that the HRUS applied, then landowners would not open their property at all, defeating the purpose of the statute. 65 In summary, although Howard may have had professional as well as personal reasons for taking the course, 6 her alleged professional motivation does not convert her into a nonrecreational user. Her subjective intent is, in this situation, immaterial.