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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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CONTACT:
Stephany Dugan |
State Rep. Nick Kotik |
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September 2007
LEGISLATIVE ROUNDUP
Around this time every year, avid sportsmen and hunting enthusiasts turn much of their attention, with great anticipation, to the upcoming hunting season. The General Assembly, too, focuses on a plethora of issues affecting thousands of Pennsylvania’s sportsmen throughout the course of our two-year sessions. We deal with legislation regarding fishing and boating laws and regulations, licensing issues and much more.
I would like to take this opportunity to highlight a bill that has recently become law in Pennsylvania that will have a direct impact on thousands of hunters in our state. This is a bill that I am proud to say I voted for, because without it, this fall’s hunting season could have missed the target for both hunters and the businesses that financially depend on them.
The law is designed to protect landowners from liability for the actions taken by hunters on their property. An Allegheny County colleague of mine, Rep. Harry Readshaw, authored this legislation after the owner of a Lehigh County farm reached a settlement with a woman who was wounded by a stray bullet that was fired from his property less than a mile away. The court ruling held the owner liable along with the man who fired the weapon.
It is understandable that as a result of this case, many private property owners who had allowed hunters access to their land in the past began to post "no hunting" signs to protect themselves against the possibility of liability. This could very easily have had a ripple effect across the state. As more and more property owners started to close off their fields and woodlands, the potential existed for more hunters in Pennsylvania to be shut our from virtually every private land, which traditionally offers much of the best hunting in the entire state.
In turn, many businesses would have taken a financial hit. Fewer hunters would have meant fewer licenses and hunting supplies sold, resulting in less revenue for many sportsmen-related business owners. Gunsmiths, meat processors, outdoor supply stores are just a few examples of hunting-related businesses, and their employees, who rely on Pennsylvania’s hunters for much of their yearly income.
This legislation, which is now Act 11 of 2007, helps to prevent these potentially disastrous situations from becoming reality. It corrects much of the shortcomings in the landowner liability law and allows property owners to keep their land open to hunters by closing the loophole of the possibility of a having a future lawsuit filed against them. Because of these reasons, I was proud to vote for this bill, which received widespread support in both the House and Senate before Gov. Rendell signed it into law in June.
Other major supporters of this new law included the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs.
I wish you a safe hunting season and pledge to protect this great tradition in Pennsylvania. I welcome your feedback on this issue as well as any other hunting, boating or fishing issue relating to state government that you may have. To contact me or my staff, call my Coraopolis office at 412-264-4260 or my Carnegie office at 412-429-5091. You can also send me e-mail through my Web site: www.pahouse.com/kotik.
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