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Liability
One of the concerns of residents and adjacent landowners revolves around liability. They think that litigation risks are too great and a community cannot afford to insure itself. This topic is repeatedly addressed by managers of existing trails. Trail managers cannot state what they must pay for liability insurance because it is included in their blanket policy. They feel it adds little cost to the overall policy. .

The other liability concern is that of the adjacent landowner. Landowner liability is not much of a concern since there are "recreational use" statutes on the books in 49 states including Indiana. These statutes state that an injured person would need to prove that the landowner engaged in willful and wanton misconduct in order to recover damages. The only way that a landowner might not have protection under the "recreational use" statute is if that landowner charged a fee for access to their property.

14-2-6-3 Restrictions on landowner's liability to persons using land for recreational activities Sec. 3. Any person who goes upon or through the premises including, but not as a limitation, land, caves, waters, and private ways of another with or without permission to hunt, fish, swim, trap, camp, hike, sightsee, or for any other purpose, without the payment of monetary consideration. The owner of such premises does not assume responsibility for nor incur liability for any injury to person or property caused by an act or failure to act of other persons using such premises…

The best way to be sure that liability issues are avoided is proper planning in designing the trail. The B&O Trail can draw on many successful trail designs to minimize this concern.