§ 75E.002.Limited Liability

The protection, and its exceptions depart from the template in two significant ways.

The entity is not liable for a participant injury if, at the time, the prescribed warning was posted.

The first exception splits into two standards, which no other chapter in the series does.

Gross negligence or intentional misconduct with regard to the safety of the area or the participant — a much higher bar than the ordinary negligence the other four chapters use. But ordinary negligence with regard to a motorized off-road vehicle or related equipment provided by the entity to the participant.

The distinction is coherent. Riding off-road is dangerous by nature and the operator is protected against ordinary negligence in running the area — but if the operator hands over the machine, it must be maintained with reasonable care.

The second exception carves out inherent risk explicitly. A potentially dangerous condition at the area is an exception other than a potentially dangerous condition inherent to driving a vehicle in a motorized off-road vehicle area, including unstable roads, surfaces, or subsurfaces or natural or man-made obstacles.

Rough ground and obstacles are the point of the activity, and naming them keeps them out of the exception.

Subsection (c) disapplies attractive nuisance to any claim for an injury occurring in the area — following the electric utility and community garden provisions in the recreational use chapter.