State and Local Government Law Commons^™

The Minnesota Recreational Use Statute: A Preliminary Analysis, Donald H. Gjerdingen

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the past twenty-four years, Minnesota and forty-two other states in an effort to ease the growing burden on public parks and campgrounds have enacted recreational use statutes to encourage private landowners to open their land to the public for recreational use. As incentive, the statutes offer the landowners a limited form of tort immunity if they gratuitously allow entry for recreational use. Despite their simplicity, the possible ramifications of the statutes in the area of premises liability law are far-reaching. This Note analyzes the Minnesota recreational use statute and suggests a theoretical framework for its interpretation.