Report Title:

County Liability; Hazardous Recreational Activities

 

Description:

Provides immunity to counties for liability for injuries to a participants, persons assisting a participant, and spectators arising out of a hazardous recreational activity; defines hazardous recreational activity; clarifies that immunity does not apply to a county's failure to warn, gross negligence, recklessness, or wilful, wanton, or deliberate conduct.

 

THE SENATE

S.B. NO.

793

TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2001

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

relating to counties.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. Chapter 46, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section in part V to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:

"§46- Liability for hazardous recreational activities. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), a county, including a county's employees, shall be immune from liability and damages to person or property, or both, arising out of a hazardous recreational activity to any person who is a participant, person assisting a participant, or spectator who:

(1) Knew or reasonably should have known that the hazardous recreational activity created a substantial risk of injury to themselves and were voluntarily in the area of the risk; or

(2) Having the ability to leave, failed to leave.

(b) Subsection (a) shall not apply to a county for a hazardous recreational activity occurring on county owned or county-controlled property, if the injury or death occurred as a direct result of a county's:

(1) Failure to warn, if:

(A) The county had actual knowledge of a physically hazardous condition and sufficient time to warn against the condition; or

(B) The physically hazardous condition was not known to the person asserting the claim against the county, and the condition would not have been known to a reasonably prudent person who participates, assists a participant, or observes the same hazardous recreational activity; or

(2) Gross negligence, recklessness, or wilful, wanton, or deliberate conduct.

(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit the liability of:

(1) An independent concessionaire; or

(2) Any person or organization other than a county, operating a hazardous recreational activity, whether or not the person or organization has a contractural relationship with the county to use the public property;

for injuries or damages, or both, arising from the operation of a hazardous recreational activity on the public property.

(d) As used in this section:

"Hazardous recreational activity" means a recreational activity that creates a substantial (as distinguished from a minor, trivial, or insignificant) risk of injury. The term includes, but is not limited to:

(1) Animal rides, including equestrian competition, archery, bicycle racing or jumping, mountain bicycling (not including riding a bicycle on a paved pathway, road, or sidewalk), boating, canoeing, diving, hang gliding, hiking, kayaking, motorized vehicle racing, off-road motorcyling or four-wheel drive of any kind, orienteering, pistol and rifle shooting, rock climbing, rocketeering, rodeo, spelunking, sky diving, sport parachuting, paragliding, body contact sports in which it is reasonably that there will be rough bodily contact with one or more participants, skateboarding, inline skating, roller hockey, surfing, trampolining tree climbing, tree rope swinging, waterskiing, white water rafting, and windsurfing;

(2) Any form of diving into water from other than a diving board or diving platform, or at any place or from a structure where diving is prohibited and reasonable warning of the hazard has been given."

SECTION 2. This Act does not affect rights and duties that matured, penalties that were incurred, and proceedings that were initiated, before its effective date.

SECTION 3. New Statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

INTRODUCED BY:

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