STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2293

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2116

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Water and Land and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2116 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO TORT LIABILITY,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to make permanent the liability exception for county lifeguards for damages caused by dangerous natural conditions when certain warning signs are posted.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Department of the Attorney General, Department of the Corporation Counsel of the City and County of Honolulu, Department of Emergency Services of the City and County of Honolulu, Mayor of the County of Maui, Mayor of the County of Kauai, Mayor of the County of Hawai‘i, Kaua‘i Fire Department, Hawai‘i Fire Department, County of Maui Department of Fire and Public Safety, Hawaii State Fire Council, Honolulu Fire Department, Hawaiian Lifeguard Association, Kaua‘i Chamber of Commerce, Kauai Lifeguard Association, Hawaii Government Employees Association, and eight individuals.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Hawaii Association for Justice.

     Your Committees find that since the passage of legislation in the form of Act 82, Sessions Laws of Hawaii 2003 (Act 82), and in the ensuing eleven years, the Department of Land and Natural Resources has initiated a comprehensive sign program that is deployed statewide in public recreational areas associated with parks and wilderness trails.  These actions have resulted in a variety of critical outcomes and now institutionalized management practices.  The public has become accustomed to seeing the uniform, standard signs warning of potential exposure to hazardous natural conditions at managed trailheads and park entrances, in addition to at the actual point of exposure.

     This sign program strikes the balance between the government's duty to warn and the public's responsibility to heed that warning and make an informed choice, before engaging in recreational activity.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  On the recommendation of the Attorney General, deleting its contents and inserting the contents of S.B. No. 1007, S.D. 2, Proposed H.D. 1 (Regular Session of 2014), which makes Act 82 permanent and additionally extends the conclusive presumption of signage as legally adequate warning of dangerous non-natural conditions on unimproved public lands;

     (2)  Changing the effective date to June 29, 2014; and

     (3)  Making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water and Land and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2116, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2116, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water and Land and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs,

____________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair

____________________________ MALAMA SOLOMON, Chair