Court allows injury suit at national park

The National Park Service isn’t legally required to remind visitors to watch their step around scenic wonders, or to post danger signs near waterfalls or mountain trails. But a federal appeals court says it’s a different story when the Park Service creates a hidden danger and doesn’t warn the public.

On Friday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated a lawsuit against the government by a Santa Clara woman who was injured while visiting Mount Rainier National Park in Washington with her husband and young daughter in June 2010.

Donna Young was outside the park’s visitor center when her daughter called her over to look at a small hole in the snow, the court said. As Young approached, the snow collapsed, and she fell 12 feet onto a concrete pad beneath an electric transformer, suffering broken ribs and other injuries. The Park Service had installed the underground transformer to supply power to the visitor center 150 feet away, but hadn’t put up a sign to warn the public that the snow could be melted by heat from the device, the court said.

Government lawyers sought to dismiss Young’s damage suit without a trial, arguing that the placement of warning signs was a discretionary decision for the National Park Service, which balances safety against public access and preservation of natural resources. Under federal law, the government is immune from negligence suits based on the discretionary acts of a federal agency.

A federal judge dismissed the suit but was overruled by the appeals court, which said the transformer was in a different category from the park’s natural resources.

The Park Service’s “decisions with respect to the design and construction of roadways and trails, for example, are discretionary decisions” related to public access and resource preservation, and thus are shield- ed from lawsuits, Judge Mary Murguia said in the 3-0 ruling. She noted the court’s past decisions dismissing suits over the lack of barriers atop waterfalls at Kings Canyon National Park, and the absence of signs warning of the dangers of diving off a bridge at Yosemite.

The hidden transformer, on the other hand, “has no connection to visitor enjoyment or protection of wildlife and the general alpine environment,” but was a hazard the Park Service had created, Murguia said. In those circum- stances, she said, “the only policy the (Park Service) must consider is one it appears to have ignored: visitor safety.”

Wayne Mitchell, Young’s lawyer, said the court had tackled a “difficult area of law” and he was happy with its conclusion. He said Young has recovered from her injuries and returned to work as a computer programmer.