Oregon ensures landowners with hiking trails are immune from lawsuits

The Oregon House and Senate have passed SB 179 to eliminate landowner liability for most injuries sustained during recreational activity. This brings an end to six years of controversy over what constituted “recreational activity”.

Oregon legislature strengthens immunity laws for owners of public trails

Oregon law to restore rec immunity, keep trails open, heads to Gov. Tina Kotek

To summarize, the new law states that if you get hurt while participating in recreational activity on someone’s land, you can’t sue them unless the injury was the result of “gross negligence” or “reckless, wanton, or intentional misconduct” on the part of the landowner. If you slip and hurt yourself on a trail, you can’t sue the person whose land you are walking on unless they built the trail in a completely obscene way. Unimproved right-of-ways receive immunity as well – if someone wants to walk off path or on an unimproved trail and gets hurt doing it, that’s their responsibility, not the landowner’s.

The law applies not only to hikers, but also horse riders, bicyclists, and anyone participating in normal recreational activities like hunting or fishing. It also covers volunteers on public purpose projects. According to the articles linked here, this immunity is not just for city and county governments but also private landowners who open their land for recreation.

One previous issue was that the original recreational liability bill, ORS 105, granted immunity for recreational activities such as “hunting, fishing, swimming, boating, camping, picnicking, hiking, nature study, outdoor educational activities, waterskiing, winter sports, viewing or enjoying historical, archaeological, scenic or scientific sites or volunteering for any public purpose project”, but didn’t specify “walking” to and from the recreation site. This bill now adds running and walking to that list and states that the list is non-exhaustive.

In related news, the lawsuit that started this whole controversy five years ago finally came to an end, with a jury deciding that the City of Newport was not liable for the injuries a woman suffered when she slipped on a bridge while hiking back on a trail. The new bill clarifies such immunity in an attempt to head off such lawsuits much earlier.