Court Opinion

ID: 9748711
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:11:02.855683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:38.745337
License: Public Domain

CRUMLISH, Jr., President Judge,
concurring.
While I concur in the result reached by the majority, I write separately to articulate the dilemma which this Court faces when litigants refer us for guidance and authority to the Rivera and Auresto decisions.
In Rivera, the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Nix and Justices McDermott and Zappala vigorously dissenting, stated that the Recreational Use Act was intended to encourage public access to land for outdoor recreational use. *35The language quoted by our majority was unnecessary to the Rivera holding and fails to give the reader adequate guidance as to what is “largely unimproved land.”
Moreover, while we are constrained to follow the authority of Auresto (as we did in applying it to Commonwealth political subdivisions in Farley), adherence to the Auresto decision in tandem with the Rivera dicta quoted above, leads to anomolous results. That is, a municipality may be liable for injuries occurring in enclosed recreational spaces but not for injuries occurring in parkland. That result is dictated by no greater a criterion than the size of the plot. To say that playground and recreational areas, of which there may be hundreds, are more easily supervised than municipally owned parkland defies reality.
Rather, the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions should not be judicially cloaked in immunity when the Recreational Use of Land and Water Act by its own terms does not grant it.
Consequently, I concur only in the result because of my disagreement with the reasoning in Auresto and the troublesome language of Rivera.
McGINLEY, J., joins in this concurring opinion.