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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Creating a marked path can increase liabilities. It implies that the path is safe. When someone falls and is hurt, the landowner doesnt want to hear that the "designated pathway" was unsafe, that the totally innocent member of the public was literally sent down the garden path to an injury. So landowners will ignore many paths, adopting an "enter at your own risk" approach. One increasing area is accessibility levels. If a landowner installs a gate or other structure on a path, does that structure have to be wheelchair accessible? Can a landowner install a gate designed to disuade bicycles?

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Are you American? I am, and this line of thinking screams "uniquely American" to me, but I'm curious if "liabilities everywhere" is similarly a concern across the pond.

My understanding has been that every other country has much more "common sense" than we do in these matters.

People who claim that someone who breaks their ankle on an unmaintained footpath through a field or in the woods in the US will routinely track down the landowner and sue them really need to provide some documentation that's the case.

That's fair. I think it's a (possibly logical) extrapolation from the undeniably litigious nature of Americans. See recent: https://6abc.com/water-bead-warnings-are-beads-safe-dangers-...

> At least one parent has sued the maker and distributor of one of the products. The lawsuit says some children are ingesting them, and the beads are blocking airways and organs.

Health Insurance companies will follow-up with determining if the property/land owner is responsible for the accident and try to sue. Months after ER treatment, I've had to respond that my child's cycling accident on a camp site was not because of the camp site owner's site maintenance. So it's not necessarily the victim who sues, but the victims' insurer.

I'm honestly skeptical that's a common thing however. I've certainly never encountered such a thing and, while I've seen a few cases such as yours mentioned online, it's not something I've ever heard from anyone I know.

If someone received an insurance payout (ie medical expenses covered) then there was absolutely a subrogation discussion between the insurance companies of each party. Upon being given access to electronic law records, new law students are often shocked to see their names on lawsuits they never heard about. That bicycle accident at the mall when you were a kid ... your dad's work-based health insurer sued the mall's insurer to get back the money they paid to the hospital that stitched you up. Thousands of such tiny actions are filed and settled every day.

Last time I had a cycling accident that required an ER trip, I received a packet from my insurer a few weeks later asking for details. The way the questions were phrased, they were absolutely looking for somebody else to pay. Is it common that the insurer takes the next step (actually suing another party)? No idea, but they definitely look for ways to pass the buck.

Well you'll have to define common, then. From the parent comment and "cases mentioned online" I would personally say it's common enough in the US. It's how our system works.

That line of thinking is certainly not British. Rights of way exist; it's not a matter of "creating a marked path". Farmers have a duty to keep the rights of way clear. See https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/environment/countryside/public-r...

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