Two bills that could shape the future of Oregon’s outdoor recreation economy and public lands are expected to come forward in the 2025 legislative session, and they both center on a tricky subject: lawsuits.
Over the past decade, and particularly the past few years, lawsuits or the threat of them have led to trail closures and a rise in insurance costs for ski areas, outfitters and guides, say advocates supporting reform.
“If anything, the situation has gotten worse,” said Jordan Elliott, president of the Pacific Northwest Ski Areas Association.
This session is likely to see two legal concepts debated: recreational immunity for public and private lands, and liability protection for recreation businesses such as ski areas and outfitters.
Both deal with the tricky balance between allowing access to outdoor recreation while protecting people who are injured due to negligence.
Recreational immunity: Bill would continue law protecting cities, counties, from outdoor related accidents
In the 2024 short session, the Oregon Legislature passed a bill protecting cities and counties from lawsuits when people are injured on their hiking trails or other recreational facilities.
The bill came about after Oregon’s Court of Appeals ruled in July 2023 that the City of Newport couldn’t use a legal concept known as recreational immunity to dismiss a lawsuit from a woman who sued the city after slipping and breaking her leg while crossing a trail bridge.
The ruling sparked a wave of trail closures from cities worried about an uptick in lawsuits they couldn’t afford to fight.
The bill that passed last session allowed cities to reopen the closed trails by restoring recreational immunity — a statute that shields landowners who open their land for free to recreation from lawsuits. It mainly applies to parks, trails and other recreation sites owned by cities or the state, but can also apply to private landowners who open their land to recreation.
However, the 2024 bill was meant as a temporary fix and has a sunset in 2026. This year, advocates have decided to attempt to pass a bill that essentially keeps the power of recreational immunity in place for now and removes the sunset.
State Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, sponsored the legislation in 2024 and said he’d bring back a bill to make the law permanent in 2025.
“The idea at this point would be to stabilize where we’re at (to keep that temporary fix in place),” Prozanski said. “There are still active cases in the court system and we don’t yet know how that’s going to play out. Once the courts have their say, then it would make sense to look at whether new legislation is needed.”
In the long-run, the trick will be to balance the inherent risk of recreation and protect cities from lawsuits, while also recognizing that at some point, “the owner does have a duty to fill in potholes,” Prozanski said.
The opponent of expanding recreational immunity has been the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association, which has argued cities and counties should not enjoy such broad protection from lawsuits.
Recreational immunity “further reduces the financial incentive for cities, counties and the state to keep our families and communities safe,” the advocacy group said last year. “They will now have no responsibility to maintain safe trails, bike lanes and parks.”
It was not immediately clear whether OTLA will oppose the bill this time around.
Group to take another swing at restoring liability waivers for outdoor recreation businesses
While recreational immunity can protect cities from lawsuits, recreation businesses will also push for liability reform in the 2025 session.
In the 2023 session, the group Protect Oregon Recreation supported a bill that would restore the legal power of liability waivers — an agreement that a person assumes the risk of a ski area or mountain bike park if they get injured.
The power of the waivers has been diminished following a 2014 Oregon Supreme Court decision that called waivers an “unconscionable contract.” In following years, a skier and mountain biker sued and were awarded millions following serious accidents at ski areas.
In 2023, outfitters overwhelmingly supported reform, saying the threat of lawsuits had led to far higher insurance prices. But, the bill died in committee.
Elliott, the Pacific Northwest Ski Areas Association president, said a similar bill will return this session and that it’s more necessary than ever. He said insurance companies are pulling out of covering liability insurance for some businesses.
“The hope is to restore the same balance that Oregon used to have, and that all of our neighboring states do have,” he said. “The point is that look, these activities are inherently risky and there needs to be an acknowledgment of personal reasonability, while at the same time, we can still hold a business responsible if they are grossly negligent. We can balance those two things.”
The foe, again, has been the OTLA. In 2023, they said passing the legislation would give ski areas and guides “blanket immunity” and “reason not to follow safety standards.”
The case that led to the Supreme Court decision weakening liability waivers involved 18-year-old Myles Bagley, who was paralyzed from the waist down when he crashed after going off an expert-level jump in the terrain park at Mount Bachelor.
Bagley and his lawyers claimed the resort was responsible because the jump’s design was flawed and the liability waiver he signed — when he purchased a season pass — was “unconscionable.”
In 2023, Bagly told the Statesman Journal that “I was just 18 years old when my life was forever changed by their defective, man-made jump design. I’ll never walk again, and I can’t stomach the idea of that happening to someone else with no accountability or incentive for businesses and corporations to ensure safety for their patrons.”
When will the Oregon recreation bills get introduced?
The Oregon legislature gets underway on Jan. 21. Bills on both topics are expected, but whether they make progress remains to be seen.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 16 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. He can be reached at [email protected] or (503) 399-6801. Find him on X at @ZachsORoutdoors.
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