Court Opinion

ID: 9517751
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:30:53.784866+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:15:18.149432
License: Public Domain

POLLOCK, J.,
dissenting.
Appellant Marie R. Troth was seriously injured and her husband was killed when they went over a dam in their boat. She sued the State of New Jersey, which owned the lake on which they had been fishing, for her husband’s wrongful death, *281N.J.S.A. 2A:31-1 to -6, and for her personal injuries. The Law Division denied the State’s motion for summary judgment. The Appellate Division reversed, 222 N.J.Super. 420 (1988), holding that the State was immune for injuries caused by a condition of unimproved property, id. at 424-27, and by the absence of supervision, id. at 427. The majority reverses the judgment of the Appellate Division and remands the matter to the Law Division. I dissent.
-I-
I believe that the outcome of appellant’s claims is determined by the unimproved nature of the property and by the absence of State supervision of fishing on the lake. A brief summary of the relevant facts serves to focus the analysis of those claims. Union Lake, which occupies approximately 850 acres of a 4,300-acre tract, is used for public recreation. The lake was created about 100 years ago by constructing an earthen dam to contain the Maurice River. The dam is 2,000-feet long, thirty-five-feet high, and has a 200-foot-wide concrete spillway. Facing the lake, on each side of the spillway, is a fourteen-inch by twenty-inch, white and red sign, warning “DANGER, KEEP AWAY.” The word “DANGER” was painted four inches high, and the remaining words were eight inches high. In addition, a protective steel cable extended across the spillway in front of the dam.
In 1982, the State’s Division of Wildlife Management acquired the property and designated it as a wildlife-management area. N.J.A.C. 7:25-2.18. A boat ramp in Union Lake Park, which is owned by the City of Millville, provides access to the lake. Although residential dwellings abut portions of the lake, none of those dwellings is in the vicinity of the dam. In sum, the State has left the property unimproved. State conservation officers patrol the lake and the surrounding area to enforce fish and game laws. From mid-June to Labor Day, they inspect the lake and the spillway twice each day.
*282A heavy rainfall on June 20, 1983, the day before the accident, had increased both the level of the lake and the flow over the spillway. On the day of the accident, Mr. and Mrs. Troth were trolling from a small boat when their fishing lines became snagged on a submerged tree trunk. As they moved toward the point of the snag, they drifted towards the spillway. The trolling motor was insufficient to withstand the current, and Mr. Troth unsuccessfully tried to start a larger motor. Mrs. Troth grabbed the steel cable, but the boat, with both her and Mr. Troth in it, went over the spillway.
-II-
The critical consideration in determining whether the State is immune from liability is not whether the condition giving rise to the injury is artificial or natural, but whether the State-owned property is improved or unimproved. I arrive at that conclusion from my analysis of the words and legislative history of the New Jersey Tort Claims Act, N.J.S.A. 59:1-1 to 12-3 (the Act). With a significant exception, the Act was patterned after the California Tort Claims Act. Fuchilla v. Layman, 109 N.J. 319, 331 (1988); see Comment, §§ 59:4-8 and -9. The California statute, on which N.J.S.A. 59:4-8 is based, provides that
[n]either a public entity nor a public employee is liable for an injury caused by a natural condition of any unimproved public property, including but not limited to any natural condition of any lake, stream, bay, river or beach.
[Cal. Gov’t Code § 831.2 (West 1988) (emphasis added).]
The New Jersey Legislature deleted the word “natural” from the relevant section of the statute, N.J.S.A. 59:4-8. By making that deletion, the Legislature manifested its intent not to restrict immunity to injuries arising out of public property in its natural condition. See N. Singer, 2A Sutherland Statutory Construction § 45.12 at 55 (Sands 4th ed. 1984). Thus, the test for State immunity is, as the Act mandates and as the majority implicitly acknowledges, ante at 267-269, whether the property is unimproved. That conclusion comports with the legislative concern that fear of liability might “cause many public entities *283to close such areas to public use.” Comment, §§ 59:4-8 and -9; see J.S. Fitzpatrick, Governmental Tort Liability in New Jersey 127 (1986). Consistent with that analysis, the Appellate Division has held, in a case embraced by the majority, ante at 267-269, that the determinative question is not whether property is in its natural condition, but whether it is unimproved. Freitag v. Morris County, 177 N.J.Super. 234, 238 (1981). Thus, an artificial condition does not deprive property of its unimproved character.
In analyzing whether Union Lake, including its dam, is unimproved property, I take my lead from the legislative direction that the term “unimproved” should be liberally construed. Comment, §§ 59:4-8 and -9. The Legislature has directed that in determining whether public property is unimproved, courts should compare “the nature and extent of the improvement with the nature and extent of the land.” Ibid. The majority does not dispute that the lake is unimproved. Instead, the majority views the dam as something separate from the lake and concludes that it constitutes an improvement that falls outside the exemption from liability. In this regard, the Appellate Division declared:
In comparing the nature and extent of this man-made improvement with the nature and extent of the lake itself it is evident that the existence of the dam cannot detract from the overall unimproved character of this portion of the Union Lake Wildlife Management Area. * * * [T]hat this body of water was created by the damming of the Maurice River is not a basis to distinguish it from a naturally formed lake in terms of the legislative intent to encourage recreational use of public acreages, both land and water oriented. [222 N.J.Super. at 426.]
I agree. The point is that the lake would not exist without the dam. It follows that the dam, like the rest of the lake, should have the benefit of the immunity granted by the Legislature to unimproved property. In asserting that “the ‘dangerous’ condition of the spillway that allegedly caused the injuries in this case would not have existed had the dam not been built,” ante at 271, the majority fails to perceive that without the dam there would be no lake. The same flaw inheres in the majori*284ty’s characterization of the dam as a partial improvement. Ante at 272. The dam is not a mere improvement; it is an integral part of the lake. Only by according the dam the immunity enjoyed by the lake can the Court honor the legislative direction that “it is not unreasonable to expect persons who voluntarily use unimproved public property to assume the risk of injuries arising therefrom as part of the price to be paid for benefits received.” Comment, §§ 59:4-8 and -9.
The risk created by the flow of water over the spillway is like other risks encountered by boaters on other bodies of water, such as the flow of water over naturally-created dams or waterfalls. In either case, the legislative purpose is to encourage use of recreational facilities by protecting public entities from unreasonable expenses of putting property in safé condition or of defending claims for injuries. Insofar as the State’s entitlement to immunity is concerned, it makes no difference whether the dam is large or small, natural or artificial, as long as the area is unimproved.
The majority concludes, however, that in analyzing the unimproved character of the property, the focus should be on whether “there has been substantial physical modification of the property from its natural state, and when the physical change creates hazards that did not previously exist and that require management by the, public entity.” Ante at 269-270. That test has no support in the words or legislative history of the Tort Claims Act. Finding no support in New Jersey, the majority relies on three decisions of the California courts, in each of which recovery was denied to the injured party. Ante at 269. One decision not discussed by the majority, Osgood v. County of Shasta, 50 Cal.App. 3d 586, 590-91, 123 Cal.Rptr. 442, 444-45 (1975), holds that the shoreline of a man-made lake is a natural condition that immunized the defendant county from liability when a water skier was struck and killed by a motorboat on the lake. I believe that the shoreline of a man-made lake is like the dam on Union Lake. Both the shoreline and the dam confine the water without which the lake *285would not exist. Just as the California lake would not exist without the shoreline, Union Lake would not exist without the dam. And just as the California governmental entity was not responsible for the boating accident on its lake, the State should not be responsible for the accident on Union Lake.
Analogizing the Union Lake dam to the flood a hundred years ago in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the majority finds the dam to be a dangerous condition. Ante at 270. Needless to say, the present case is not concerned with the risk of the dam’s collapse. The record, moreover, is devoid of any evidence that anyone else has ever been injured at the dam. Indeed, the only evidence before us reveals that no one has been injured at the dam during the entire time that the State has owned it or during the preceding twenty years.
The basic flaw in the reasoning of the majority, however, is that it finds “that the degree of hazard posed by a physical alteration of property is material to a determination whether that alteration should be classified as 'improved’ property * * Ante at 271. The New Jersey Legislature reached the opposite conclusion. It mandated that “a public entity is provided an absolute immunity irrespective of whether a particular condition is a dangerous one.” Comment, §§ 59:4-8 and -9. In brief, the majority cannot support its suggested imposition of liability without substituting its own policy judgment for the one made by the Legislature.
Finally, the majority concludes that dams are so dangerous that the State should be deprived of immunity for this type of unimproved property. Ante at 272. Whatever merit lies in that argument should more appropriately be addressed to the Legislature.
For Justice O’Hem, the critical issue is not the unimproved nature of the lake, but causation. As he sees it,
the plaintiff alleges that particular features of a physical improvement to property, i.e., the inadequate spillway or the defective boom, caused the injury. On these issues, I think that the plaintiff has presented at least triable issues of fact as to whether or not such were the cause of the injury as opposed to the *286rush of water of the lake itself, as the State contends by way of affirmative defense. [Ante at 279.]
This analysis, I believe, stands the Act on its head. The Legislature has admonished that “the approach should be whether an immunity applies and if not, should liability attach. It is hoped that in utilizing this approach the courts will exercise restraint in the acceptance of novel causes of action against public entities.” Comment, § 59:2-1. By recognizing the present cause of action, Justice O’Hern’s concurring opinion flouts that clear legislative admonition. Because the lake, including the dam, is unimproved property, the State is immune no matter how the accident was caused.
-III-
The majority also allows appellant to proceed with her claim that the conservation officers were negligent in their supervision of the recreational use of Union Lake. She bases this claim on N.J.S.A. 59:3-11, which provides:
A public employee is not liable for the failure to provide supervision of public recreational facilities. Nothing in this section exonerates a public employee for negligence in the supervision of a public recreational facility.
The principle underlying the statute is that a public entity should not be liable for the failure to supervise, but only for negligent supervision. As the majority acknowledges, ante at 273, a public entity does not lose its immunity without some employee conduct evidencing an intention to supervise the activity that gave rise to the injury. Liability should not be imposed simply because the government entity did something tangentially related to the recreational activity. Morris v. City of Jersey City, 179 N.J.Super. 460, 464 (App.Div.1981); see Stempkowski v. Borough of Manasquan, 208 N.J.Super. 328, 333 (App.Div.1986).
In the present case, neither the conservation officers nor any other State employees undertook to supervise the recreational use of Union Lake. Those employees were present to enforce fish and game laws. Policing activities do not constitute supervision for the purpose of N.J.S.A. 59:3-11. Vanchieri v. New *287Jersey Sports & Exposition Auth., 201 N.J.Super. 34, 41 (App.Div.1985), rev’d on other grounds, 104 N.J. 80 (1986). Thus, the issuance of summonses to unlicensed fishermen, as occasionally occurred at Union Lake, is not tantamount to assuming responsibility for the safety of fishermen. The record is devoid of any allegation that the conservation officers told appellant or her husband where to fish or in any way injected themselves into appellant’s fishing expedition. In this tragic event, appellant and her husband were on their own.
As for the inspection of the integrity of the dam and spillway, on which Justice Handler relies, ante at 274-275, that activity was an incidental undertaking “tangentially related” to fishing. Morris, supra, 179 N.J.Super. at 464. Any such inspection was completely unrelated to appellant’s accident; it did not constitute supervision of the activity that caused the accident. Neither the presence of conservation officers in the wildlife area, ibid., nor their knowledge that people fished near the dam equates with supervision. If awareness of public use of unimproved property could constitute supervision, little, if anything, would be left of governmental immunity. Unimproved property may be hazardous and the hazards may be known to recreation or conservation officers. The Legislature intended, however, that members of the public who use unimproved property should assume the risks of injuries caused by the property’s condition.
Here, the facts reveal an absence of supervision, not negligent supervision, by the State. As the Court has previously stated, the decision whether to supervise an activity is inherently a governmental decision to be made “free from the threat of tort liability.” Fahey v. City of Jersey City, 52 N.J. 103, 110 (1968); Stempkowski, supra, 208 N.J.Super. at 333. In brief, the State did not supervise boating on the lake, and it should not be held responsible for appellant’s claims.
I would affirm.
*288Justices CLIFFORD and GARIBALDI join in this opinion.
Concurring in result — Justices HANDLER and O’HERN — 2.
For affirmance — Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK and GARIBALDI — 3.
For reversal and remand — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices HANDLER, O’HERN and STEIN — 4.