Court Opinion

ID: 9793232
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:44:48.226442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:04:08.420143
License: Public Domain

GEORGE, J.
I concur in the majority opinion because the broad language employed by the Legislature in drafting Civil Code section 846 compels the conclusion that plaintiff, at the time he was injured, was using defendant’s property for a “recreational purpose” within the meaning of that statute. But I agree with the observation, made in the dissenting opinion, that it is incongruous to immunize a landowner from liability for injuries sustained by a child attracted to play on dangerous equipment located on the property while permitting a suit to be brought by an adult who is injured by the same dangerous equipment while on the property for a nonrecreational, illegal purpose (other than to commit one of the felonies listed in Civil Code section 847). This incongruity results, however, not from the holding of the majority opinion, but from the statute itself.
The dissent seeks to avoid this paradox by concluding that the Legislature, by implication, has adopted the “suitability exception” recognized by a number of decisions of the Courts of Appeal. But even if this court were to *1110assume that the Legislature’s silence connotes acquiescent adoption of the judicially created rule exempting the owner of property unsuitable for recreational purposes from the immunity conferred by Civil Code section 846, the disparate treatment accorded the child injured in play and the adult injured while engaged in criminal activity would continue to exist. For example, a child who enters property deemed suitable for recreation and is injured falling from an apple tree would be precluded from recovering for his or her injuries, but section 846 would not apply to a thief who enters such property to steal apples and is injured in the same manner.
The dissent additionally would avoid the majority’s holding that climbing upon farm equipment is a “recreational purpose” by limiting the reach of Civil Code section 846 to “recreational uses similar to those enumerated in the definitional paragraph in the statute. [Citation.]” (Dis. opn., post, at p. 1114.) The statute, however, expressly immunizes landowners from liability for injuries to persons who enter or use property for “any recreational purpose.” (Civ. Code, § 846, italics added.) Although a list of examples follows this general language, the phrase “recreational purpose” is not limited to the listed activities, but “includes” them. The examples themselves are so diverse, and many are stated in such vague and general terms, that no meaningful restriction of the phrase “recreational purpose” is possible in this statutory context.
The unfortunate result in this case is mandated by the manner in which Civil Code section 846 has been drafted. We may not rewrite the statute; that power is reserved to the Legislature. I therefore concur in the opinion of this court reversing the judgment of the Court of Appeal.