Spurred by court ruling, Oregon representatives work to address trail access issue

A bill designed to address newfound legal risk to owners of recreational trails including local jurisdictions may receive a vote in front of the Oregon House of Representatives.

As part of an amendment to Senate Bill 1576, the Legislature is considering shoring up recreational immunity — which protects landowners of recreational facilities from liability so that they are encouraged to keep and maintain trails and other recreational facilities — through 2025. The legislation would also create a workgroup to formulate a long-term solution.

Last year, a ruling in Nicole Fields v. the City of Newport complicated liability protections for local governments and landowners of improved trails. In the case, Nicole Fields sued Newport for injuries suffered while falling on an improved trail owned by the city as she walked home from Agate Beach. The Court of Appeals ruled that a trial court would need to determine whether Fields was using the trail for recreational purposes. If she wasn’t, Newport could be deemed liable. The court case is currently in Lincoln County Circuit Court.

Following the Court of Appeals ruling, the insurance provider for many Oregon cities, CIS Oregon, recommended that cities close recreational trails. CIS said that, regardless of a future trial court’s ruling in Fields v. Newport, local governments and others may now have to undergo trials centered on whether a plaintiff’s activities were recreational in nature.

Scott Winkels with the League of Oregon Cities expected the insurance provider to reverse that recommendation if a bill passes at this year’s Legislature.

The bill temporarily adds walking, running and biking to the definition of “recreational purposes” and adds protection for owners of improved trails. However, protection is excluded if the improvement included “gross negligence or reckless, wanton or intentional misconduct.”

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary recommended the passage of the bill, which mandates the judiciary to study certain civil law matters, with the inclusion of the recreational immunity amendment.

“Coming into the spring and summer, we want to make sure everyone has the ability to recreate. This is a stopgap measure to do that,” Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene and Springfield, said during a judiciary committee work session.

Prozanski added that the court system could resolve the recreational immunity issue before 2025, making a long-term solution unneccesary.

Rick Osborne, with the Oregon Coast Visitors Association, counted 22 trail closures along the entire Oregon coast, noting that Rockaway Beach and Manzanita have closed more than a handful of trails.

“Right now recreational immunity is not working. This has placed access to these trails in jeopardy,” he said.

“The erosion of Oregon’s recreational immunity shifts our tax dollars away from maintaining our trails and addressing potential hazards in the always changing outdoors to instead agencies using resources to shield themselves from liability in ways that often have no benefit to the public,” said Stephanie Noll, the director of the Oregon Trail Coalition.

Most testifiers supported the bills but a few did not, including Arthur Towers of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association.

“Oregonians who are encouraged to use paved trails, and who expect those improved trails to be properly maintained, have their ability to be compensated for serious injury limited. People who use public property for commuting, transportation, or just walking onto public property to conduct business will no longer have the opportunity to hold government accountable for unsafe, poorly maintained conditions,” Towers wrote.

Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, was reticent about the bill, saying it was too far-reaching, and said she only supported it because of the sunset clause.

“This gives us the opportunity between now and 2025 to look for a more narrow and appropriate solution we can't get to in a short session without Oregonians not having access to trails and recreational opportunities this session,” she said. “If this was permanent I would probably not be supporting it.”

Sen. James Manning, D-Eugene, added: “This is one of those bills primed for a long session and we don’t have enough time to drill down into it.”