Court Opinion

ID: 9747650
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:25:57.526224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:25.244796
License: Public Domain

Dissenting opinion by
WILNER, J.
With respect, I dissent. I agree with the Court that, as a general rule, a person who organizes a hunting party is not liable in negligence for injuries caused solely by the negligence of another member of the party. I agree that Remsburg, Sr. was not in “control” of his adult son, Remsburg, Jr., although there is no evidence that the son would not have obeyed a reasonable directive of the father. Finally, I agree that neither § 10-411 of the Natural Resources Article nor any other statute cited by the Montgomerys provides direct liability for personal injury to the Montgomerys on the part of Remsburg, Sr. for the negligent conduct of his son.
I do believe, however, that a limited duty does exist under § 10-411 from which liability on Remsburg, Sr.’s part could be found in this case. The conduct at issue here occurred in *604Frederick County, making applicable § 10-411(b) and (c). Section 10-411(b)(l) provides:
“A person may not upon any pretense come to hunt on the lands owned by another person without the written permission of the landowner or the landowner’s agent or lessee. Any person hunting on this private property is liable for any damage the person causes to the private property while hunting on the private property. The landowner may not be liable for accidental injury or damage to the person whether or not the landowner or the landowner’s agent gave permission to hunt on the private property.”
Section 10-411(c) deals specifically with deer hunting and contains a similar provision. In certain counties, including Frederick County, a person “may not enter or trespass upon land owned by another person for the purpose of hunting deer on the land ... without first securing the written permission of the landowner or the landowner’s agent or lessee.”
The Court correctly construes the second sentence of § 10-411(b)(1) as applying only to damage to the property, not to personal injuries, and it correctly construes the third sentence as dealing with the liability of the landowner, not the hunter. It dismisses § 10-411(c) and the first sentence of § 10-411(b)(1) as merely statutory trespass provisions, from which no liability for personal injury can flow. That is where I disagree. These are trespass provisions, of course, but they have a purpose beyond merely prohibiting a trespass. A statute is not necessary to preclude trespass. The common law has done that quite well for hundreds of years. These statutes are not in the Real Property Article of the Code. They are in a subtitle of the Natural Resources Article dealing solely with restrictions on hunting, which, because of the very nature of the activity, is exceedingly dangerous, often more dangerous to other persons in the area than to the animals being hunted.
What is the purpose of requiring written permission from a landowner before a stranger can enter his/her land to hunt? The Court seems to infer that the only purpose is to create *605some documentary evidence that permission has been granted. That inference may be permissible with respect to § 10-411(c), which requires the hunter to exhibit the written permission on demand of a game warden, but there is no basis for such an inference under § 10-411(b)(l). Both statutes, I believe, but particularly § 10-411(b), have a broader purpose, and that is to make sure that landowners are aware that hunters will be on their land, so that they can take the proper precautions. The Legislature may well have had in mind the prospect of landowners, or their children, walking innocently across fields or through woods on their own property, unaware that hunters have entered on to the property, and being shot. Those statutes are safety measures, not just property laws.
It is undisputed that Remsburg, Sr. was, in fact, the leader and organizer of the hunt. There was clear, competent, admissible evidence that he did not have written permission from Charles Montgomery to hunt on his land and that he knew, or should have known, that no other member of his hunting party, including his negligent son, had such permission. Although he, himself, was not on Montgomery’s land when the errant shot was fired, he knew that his son was on that land, perhaps at his direction and certainly with his acquiescence. Whether or not, as leader of the hunt, he had any duty to ascertain the whereabouts of the other members of the party, it seems to me that he at least had the duty to make sure that a member of the party whom he knew was illegally trespassing, whom he knew or should have known may thereby be endangering other people, and whom he presumably could cause to move, relocated to a lawful place.
Although a violation of § 10-411 may not, of itself, create liability for negligent conduct by another person, it does impose a duty on the organizer of hunts (and really on each hunter) to obtain written permission from the landowner. Because the purpose of that requirement — or at least a principal purpose of that requirement — is to protect the safety of the landowner and his/her family and guests, I believe that a violation of that duty can create liability for foreseeable harm arising from the violation. On this record, there was enough *606evidence to make summary judgment improper. The real question was whether the harm that resulted was proximately caused by the failure to advise Montgomery of the intended invasion of his property, and, on this record, that was a jury issue.