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Let the Music Play On: The Supreme Court of Georgia’s New Test Regarding Immunity Under the Recreational Property Act

8/22/19

By: Jake Loken

Inviting individuals onto your property can lead to the invitation of a lawsuit. Generally, an individual injured on a landowner’s property could file a lawsuit against the landowner.
In Georgia, the legislature has carved out an exception to this general rule and granted immunity to a landowner when the property is being used without charge for recreational purposes. This immunity comes from the Recreational Property Act, and the Supreme Court of Georgia recently clarified the test to determine if this Act applies.
In Mercer Univ. v. Stofer, No. S18G1022, decided June 24, 2019, the Supreme Court explained the two-part test that should be used to determine if the Recreational Property Act applies. The facts of this case surround the injury and then death of Sally Stofer, who attended a free concert hosted by Mercer University at Washington Park in Macon, Georgia. Sally Stofer slipped while ascending stairs at the park and fell, hitting her head.
Under the Act, “an owner of land owes no duty of care to keep the premises safe for entry or use by others for recreational purposes.” Prior case law, and the lower courts in Mercer Univ. v. Stofer, said the subjective motivation of the landowner when inviting individuals onto their land must be considered when determining whether the invite was for “recreational purposes,” along with whether the landowner would receive an indirect benefit from that invitation.
The Supreme Court stated that those considerations were improper and “the key teachings of our cases can be distilled into a test that is more connected to the statutory text: the true scope and nature of the landowner’s invitation to use its property must be determined, and this determination properly is informed by two related considerations: (1) the nature of the activity that constitutes the use of the property in which people have been invited to engage, and (2) the nature of the property that people have been invited to use.”
The Supreme Court then clarified: “In other words, the first asks whether the activity in which the public was invited to engage was of a kind that qualifies as recreational under the Act, and the second asks whether at the relevant time the property was of a sort that is used primarily for recreational purposes or primarily for commercial activity.”
Any language in prior cases “suggesting that property owners’ subjective motivations may be relevant , . . . [or that the] landowner was motivated by the possibility that it would obtain indirect financial benefits” is relevant, “is disapproved.”
The Supreme Court did not rule on whether Mercer should receive immunity under the Act, but instead, returned the case to the lower court so that court could conduct the newly established two-part test to see if the Act applies to Mercer. Moving forward, the newly established two-part test will be used when determining if the Act applies to grant immunity to a landowner.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Jake Loken at jloken@fmglaw.com.