RULWA immunity does not apply to a paved inner-city playground and recreation center where the plaintiff fell in a hole in the black-topped surface between the basketball court and the bocee court because “[w]hen a recreational facility has been designed with improvements that require regular maintenance to be safely used and enjoyed, the owner of the facility has a duty to maintain the improvements”
How later courts described this case
- RULWA immunity does not apply to a paved inner-city playground and recreation center where the plaintiff fell in a hole in the black-topped surface between the basketball court and the bocee court because “[w]hen a recreational facility has been designed with improvements that require regular maintenance to be safely used and enjoyed, the owner of the facility has a duty to maintain the improvements”
- holding plaintiff could recover under recreational use statute where injury occurred on city's basketball court
- holding that Act does not apply to inner-city playground
- refusing to apply the RUA where doing so “would be to ignore the purpose of the Act and to disregard the expectations of the users of such a facility”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*244 NIX, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Once again I must dissent from the majority’s misinterpretation of the Recreational Use Act, 68 Pa.C.S. § 477.1 et seq. (“RUA”). The majority here perpetuates the strained reasoning by which it exempted the defendant in Rivera v. Philadelphia Theological Seminary of St. Charles Borromeo, Inc., 510 Pa. 1, 27 , 507 A.2d 1 , (1986) (Nix, C.J., dissenting), from immunity. As I stated in Rivera , no basis exists in the RUA for an exclusion for improved land. The language of the statute expressly provides that “an owner of land owes no duty of care to keep the premises safe for entry or use by others for recreational purposes, or to give any warning of a dangeroüs condition, use, structure, or activity on such premises to persons entering for such purposes.” 68 P.S. § 477-3. “Land” by definition includes the buildings and structures thereon. 68 P.S. § 477-2.
However, even accepting the conclusion by the majority in Rivera , the instant facts are clearly distinguishable. In Rivera , the swimming pool was enclosed and the Seminary controlled access to it by requiring advance notice and supervision by a priest or member of the Seminary. Rivera, supra, 510 Pa. at 12 , 507 A.2d at 6 . Conversely, the Guerin Recreational Center is open to the public without restriction. Certainly this is the type of land use the Act was designed to encourage. Any interpretation of the Act which, denies the City immunity under these circumstances serves no function other than to frustrate the purpose of the RUA, which is “to encourage owners of land to make land and water areas available to the public for recreational purposes by limiting their liability____” 68 P.S. § 477-1.
Moreover, the creation of a playground does not require the type of improvements contemplated by the Rivera court. Rather, it preserves “large, private land holdings for outdoor recreational use,” 1 Rivera, supra, 510 Pa. at 15 , *245 507 A.2d at 8 , consistent with this Court’s interpretation of the Act. The minor adjustments which change land into a recreational facility are the kinds of “ancillary structures attached to open space lands made available for recreation” that the Rivera court deemed permissible under the Act. Id.
Accordingly, I would affirm the Commonwealth Court’s holding that the City is immune from suit.
McDERMOTT, J., joins this dissenting opinion.
. The majority concedes, despite this statement by the court in Rivera v. Philadelphia Theological Seminary, 510 Pa. 1 , 507 A.2d 1 , that the Recreational Use Act, 68 P.S. § 477.1, et seq., makes no distinction between private or public ownership of land. See Commonwealth of *245 Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Resources v. Auresto, 511 Pa. 73 , 511 A.2d 815 (1986).