Bill > A292

Introduced Session

This bill would provide limited civil liability immunity to farmers hosting agritourism activities. An agritourism activity is an interactive or passive activity, carried out without or without payment to an agritourism host on a farm, related to agriculture, food production, historic tradition, or nature watching, and which is conducted by an agritourism host for the education, entertainment, or recreation of participants. Agritourism activities include farming activities, the viewing of cultural, historic, or natural attractions, pick-your-own activities, nature watching, and activities involving an animal exhibition at an agricultural fair. It would not include roadside farm stands or operations exclusively devoted to the sale of merchandise or food at retail. Under the bill, an agritourism host would not have a legal duty to protect a participant from the inherent risks of an agritourism activity, and would not be liable for injury to or death of a participant resulting from the inherent risks of an agritourism activity, provided the host gives proper warning as required in section 3 of the bill. Proper warning, as specified in the bill, is the posting of a warning notice on certain signs and contracts. That warning notice would read: "WARNING: Under New Jersey law, an agritourism host is not liable for the injury or death of a participant in an agritourism activity resulting from the inherent risk of the agritourism activity. Inherent risks include without limitation the risk of animals, weather, land conditions, and the potential for you as a participant to act in a negligent way that may contribute to your own injury or death. You are assuming the risk of participating in this agritourism activity." Failure to follow the warning requirements would result in the agritourism host's loss of limited liability protections. The limitation on liability also would not extend to any agritourism host who: (1) commits an act or omission of gross negligence concerning the safety of a participant that proximately causes injury or death to the participant; (2) has actual knowledge of a dangerous condition on the land, facilities, or equipment used in the activity or the dangerous propensity of a particular animal used in the activity that proximately causes injury or death to the participant and does not make that danger known to the participant; (3) intentionally injures a participant; or (4) commits any other act, error, or omission that constitutes willful or wanton misconduct, gross negligence, or criminal conduct that proximately causes injury or death to the participant. The limitation on liability provided by the bill would be in addition to any other limitation on liability provided by law, including, but not limited to, the limitations on liability for outdoor sports and recreational activities and equine animal activities. Finally, the bill would repeal P.L.1997, c.378 (C.2A:42A-9 et seq.) concerning farmer immunity for "pick-your-own" operations. The protections in that law would be included in this bill, and are expanded to include agritourism activities generally. This bill is modeled substantially on legislation from Arkansas.

AI Summary

Committee Categories

Ronald Dancer (R)*,  Vincent Mazzeo (D)*,  John Armato (D),  Roy Freiman (D),  Harold Wirths (R), 

Introduced, Referred to Assembly Agriculture Committee (on 01/14/2020)

Official Document