Court Opinion

ID: 9671777
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:43:15.582714+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:11.995225
License: Public Domain

*73Stephan, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Although Watson v. City of Omaha, 209 Neb. 835, 312 N.W.2d 256 (1981), may rest upon questionable reasoning, as suggested by Chief Justice Hendry in his concurring opinion, it is still the law. A governmental owner of land used for recreational purposes is entitled to the tort immunity conferred by the Recreation Liability Act (RLA), Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 37-729 to 37-736 (Reissue 2004). Watson, supra.
Applying this principle, this court has held that a city had immunity against the claim of a person who stepped in a hole and injured his knee while playing softball in a city park. Bailey v. City of North Platte, 218 Neb. 810, 359 N.W.2d 766 (1984). Presumably, a public entity would enjoy the same immunity with respect to the claim of a person who is injured while playing football on its land. However, under the majority opinion in this case, there is no immunity with respect to the claim of a person who is injured on public land en route to the bleachers to watch the same football game. Under the reasoning of the majority, the football player is engaged in a recreational activity, but the spectator is not.
This illogical conclusion flows from the decision in Dykes v. Scotts Bluff Cty. Ag. Socy., 260 Neb. 375, 617 N.W.2d 817 (2000), in which the majority applied what in my view is an artificial and overly restrictive interpretation of the phrase “recreational purposes” as used in the RLA. In holding that viewing livestock at a county fair was not substantially similar to the recreational activities specifically enumerated in the RLA at § 37-729(3), the majority reasoned that such activities “are more physical than not, generally require the outdoors, and are not ‘spectator sports.’ ” Dykes, 260 Neb. at 382-83, 617 N.W.2d at 823.
I continue to disagree with this analysis, and particularly with the notion that a recreational purpose under the RLA requires some particular degree of physical exertion. For example, fishing is one of the activities specifically enumerated in § 37-729(3) as a recreational purpose, but as one thoughtful fisherman has observed, “God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.” Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler 100 (Everyman’s Library 1906). Thus, while some may spend their *74leisure seated beside a pond waiting for a line to go taut, others enjoy watching an athletic contest from the stands of a municipal ballfield. Neither activity is “more physical than not,” but both are pursued for a clearly recreational purpose.
It may be time to reexamine the holding in Watson, supra, particularly if it necessitates the strained reasoning and illogical distinctions employed by the majority in this case and Dykes, supra. However, as long as we continue to construe the RLA to grant immunity to governmental landowners, it is my view that such immunity extends to claims arising from all uses of public lands which can fairly be characterized as recreational in purpose, whether strenuous or sedentary, competitive or contemplative.
I agree with the determination of the district court that Carol Louise Iodence was on public lands for a recreational purpose at the time of her injury and that therefore, the city is immune from liability under the RLA. For the reasons set forth above and in my dissent in Dykes, I would affirm the judgment of the district court.
Millbr-Lerman, L, joins in this dissent.