trespassers

[Daver]

As far as a lawsuit against the landowners... most states have a recreational use act which protects the landowner from such liability issues - we have it here in SD and I have never heard of someone trying to sue a landowner.

I am a little rusty on the details, but I did check this thoroughly a few years back. In short, if you give free permission to someone to hunt you are protected by Iowa law. If you charge though, lease, trespass fee, etc, then you better have some insurance coverage.

 

[JNRBRONC]

I am a little rusty on the details, but I did check this thoroughly a few years back. In short, if you give free permission to someone to hunt you are protected by Iowa law. If you charge though, lease, trespass fee, etc, then you better have some insurance coverage.

You nailed it.

Though we all know in today's litigious society that a lawyer will go ahead and start the lawsuit, hoping for an out of court settlement. Your insurance company, even if you aren't at fault, might try to settle to make it go away or save the money on a long costly court battle.

And the landowner still might be stuck with lawyer fees just defending himself from a frivolous lawsuit.

 

[GOARMY]

You are almost better off not letting anyone on the property. Every situation is a potential lawsuit with some people. Bronc is right...someone falls on your property or say gets kicked by a horse. Nothing you did wrong but it took place on your property.

Like most people I'm just gettin by and lucky enough to have a good job and bought land. Not many of us can walk in and pony up 10k to some lawyer to defend something
for no good reason.

10 here 5 there and before you know it 2 years and 25k later you get a liberal judge which slaps a 100k lien on your farm. Now how many of you people that complain that land owners wont let you hunt even have ever paid a lawyer 1 dollar let alone lost a house or a farm to bullshit? I know I'm jaded.

 

[Bowtech84]

You are almost better off not letting anyone on the property. Every situation is a potential lawsuit with some people. Bronc is right...someone falls on your property or say gets kicked by a horse. Nothing you did wrong but it took place on your property.

Like most people I'm just gettin by and lucky enough to have a good job and bought land. Not many of us can walk in and pony up 10k to some lawyer to defend something
for no good reason.

10 here 5 there and before you know it 2 years and 25k later you get a liberal judge which slaps a 100k lien on your farm. Now how many of you people that complain that land owners wont let you hunt even have ever paid a lawyer 1 dollar let alone lost a house or a farm to bullshit? I know I'm jaded.

Things must be a lot different where you live, because I've been around the same area 28 years and have never, as in not once heard of a landowner being sued over something like that.

 

[JNRBRONC]

I only know of one incident and it was around 40 years ago and involved a person breaking a leg while ice skating. The landowner locked the property down tighter than Fort Knox after that event.

It's probably not that common that someone gets hurt and sues, but the risk is there.

 

[adamo]

man, what a sad world...

 

[NH Mountains]

Things must be a lot different where you live, because I've been around the same area 28 years and have never, as in not once heard of a landowner being sued over something like that.

It happened here in New Hampshire and we have a statute that protects land owners who leave their land open to hunting. It was eventually dropped but, cost the land owner a lot of money in legal fees. In this case somebody was paralyzed when they climbed into somebody elses treestand and it dropped from the tree. It was not the landowner's treestand. He didn't know it was on his property. He does post his property now.

http://www.zumbadoandassociates.com...-hunter-drops-lawsuit-against-landowner.shtml