Landowner liability amendment passes

Gov. Ed Rendell is expected to sign House Bill 13, which amends Pennsylvania's landowner liability law. The measure unanimously passed both the House and the Senate.

Pa. Game Commission Executive Director Carl Roe said his agency strongly favored HB13.

"For decades, the law has protected landowners who agree to open their land to hunters," Roe said. "However, a recent civil case in Lehigh County demonstrated that there was a need to strengthen the law, thereby continuing to provide liability protection for landowners who generously open their lands to hunters."

A Lehigh County jury had found a landowner liable for damages, after a hunter using his property injured a woman with a stray bullet. The victim, who was 18 at the time and six months pregnant, recovered and her baby was born safely.

Plaintiffs claimed the property owner should have set rules for hunting on his land.

Pennsylvania's Recreational Use of Land and Water Act, passed in 1966, is supposed to protect landowners from liabilities connected with allowing the public to use their properties without charge. The jury's decision prompted the legislature to draft HB13, clarifying landowners' protection.

The bill's supporters feared landowners could overreact to the Lehigh County case and close their land. Farmers and woodlot owners were also alarmed, since they rely on deer hunters to trim populations of whitetails that can ravage their products.