Court Opinion

ID: 9792615
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:31:48.537013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:43.927199
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
RICHARDSON, C.J.
I respectfully dissent. I would hold, as a matter of law, that neither the State of Hawaii nor the City and County of Honolulu is liable for the plaintiffs injuries. As I stated in my dissenting opinion in Asato v. Matsuda, 55 Haw. 334, 519 P.2d 1240 (1974), a case based on similar facts: “We are ill advised to make the State of Hawaii an insurer of those who are injured by the hazards of the beach.” Id. at 334, 519 P.2d at 1240. This *70statement applies with equal force to the City in this case, since my overriding concern in Asato was not with which governmental body has jurisdiction over the situs of an accident, but with the inherent dangerousness of the ocean and beaches and the sheer impracticality of having to warn the public of the particular dangers of each and every beach in Hawaii. Id. at 334-35, 519 P.2d at 1240-41. Cf. Pickering v. State, 57 Haw. 405, 409, 557 P.2d 125, 128 (1976) (“The State is not the insurer of the personal safety of every member of the motoring public.”).
It is not clear to me from today’s decision or from our statutes1 what “care” is “due” beachgoers from the State and City. Is it the duty to simply warn the public of potential dangers, or the duty to actually clear the oceans and beaches of all possible hazardous matter? Indeed, what is to prevent the State or City from taking upon itself the duty to close certain beaches altogether? Such precautionary measures, we would say, go too far,2 as well we should, since our shore areas help supply us with food and minerals and our beaches provide one of the primary sources of recreation on these islands. In fact, this court has long striven to ensure that beaches are open and available to the public. See generally County of Hawaii v. Sotomura, 55 Haw. 176, 517 P.2d 57 (1973), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 872 (1974); In re Application of Ashford, 50 Haw. 314, 440 P.2d 76 (1968). Yet the unwarranted closure of beaches is not unforeseeable given the spectre of State/City liability every time a person steps into the ocean or a public beach. It is precisely for this reason that other ocean-bordered states have enacted legislation immunizing public entities from liability for injuries caused by the natural conditions of beaches and bodies of water. See, e.g., Cal. Gov’t Code § 831.2 (West 1963); N.J. Stat. Ann. § 59:4-8 (West 1972).
*71We must recognize that this case involves a naturally occurring and recurring problem: the presence of logs in the waters off Ewa Beach. Cf. County of Sacramento v. Superior Court, 89 Cal. App. 3d 216, 152 Cal. Rptr. 391 (Ct. App. 1979) (accident caused by presence of large “snag” in stream consisting of uprooted trees was the result of a natural condition for which County was not liable). There is no evidence in the record indicating where these logs originated. Under these facts, I believe the critical question is not whether the plaintiff had actual or constructive knowledge of the presence of the specific danger at this particular beach, but rather, whether a reasonable person should be aware that oceans and beaches in general contain numerous hazardous matter and conditions. This question, I feel, must be answered in the affirmative: to an even greater extent than other relatively high risk activities such as playing contact sports and driving on our highways, entering the ocean involves dangers which most of us are aware of but nonetheless willingly accept because the benefits outweigh the risks. I would thus conclude that neither the State nor the City owed a duty of due care to the plaintiff, and so neither can be held liable for her injuries.

 See, e.g.. HRS §§ 46-12, 62-34(9), and 266-1.

 The closure of a beach would, of course, be warranted in certain extraordinary situations, such as where toxic chemicals have leaked into the swimming waters or where the presence of sharks poses an abnormally high risk to beachgoers.