New Jersey Supreme Court Justice John Jay Hoffman wrote a unanimous opinion saying Bergen County cannot be sued by a rollerblader who was injured at a county park. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)
Bergen County cannot be sued over a rollerblader’s park pothole injury, New Jersey’s highest court ruled Thursday.
Protections from a 1968 law that shields private landowners from civil liability over injuries on their property to encourage them to allow recreational activities there extend to public parks and the governments that operate them, New Jersey’s Supreme Court ruled.
“What began as narrow immunity for hunting and fishing in forested lands has evolved into a broader immunity,” Justice John Jay Hoffman wrote for a unanimous court.
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The case turned on whether civil immunity granted to property owners by the Landowners Liability Act extended to Van Saun Park, a 130-acre park in Paramus, a Bergen County suburb of a little less than 27,000 people.
The law says landowners have no duty to keep their property safe for recreational activities and are not required to post warnings of any hazardous conditions there.
Andris Arias sued the county after falling into a pothole on a paved pathway in the park, charging that the county was negligent by failing to repair it or warn visitors of its presence. She said the fall caused permanent and severe neurological pain and required spinal surgery.
Her attorney and a spokesperson for the county did not return requests for comment.
The justices found the shield created by the Landowner Liability Act extends to the park despite past rulings that limited the law’s effect on suburban properties, though those rulings typically dealt with residential properties, like fenced back yards.
Exposing municipalities or counties to civil suits over park conditions could raise costs and taxes or spur governments to slim down open space offerings, the court said.
“To avoid such risks and costs, municipalities might close parks, avoid opening new ones, or begin charging admission to facilities such as Van Saun Park,” Hoffman wrote. “Such consequences are antithetical to the Legislature’s express purpose in enacting and subsequently broadening the LLA.”
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