## Facts

- Stacey Otteson died in a jeep rollover accident on a narrow dirt logging access road in the San Juan National Forest, Colorado.
- The road was constructed and maintained by the United States primarily to facilitate timber harvesting and extended beyond the accident site to a dead end.
- Otteson and the other occupants used the road for a recreational pleasure trip and turned back after encountering deep snow and ice.
- On the return trip, the jeep slid on an ice patch, rolled down an embankment, and crashed, killing Otteson and the driver and injuring other passengers.
- Otteson’s estate alleged the United States negligently failed to remove ice, warn of hazards, or close the road when unsafe.

## Issues

1. Whether, under the FTCA’s “private individual under like circumstances” standard, the United States could invoke Colorado’s recreational-use (“sightseer”) statute limiting landowner liability to recreational users.
2. Whether the United States should be treated as a private rural landowner (protected by the statute) rather than as a public road authority owing broader duties.
3. Whether the estate alleged or produced evidence of “willful or malicious” failure to guard or warn against a known dangerous condition sufficient to avoid the statute’s limitation.

## Decision

- The Tenth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the United States.
- The court held that the FTCA incorporates state substantive limits on private landowner liability, including Colorado’s sightseer statute.
- The decedent was a recreational user of rural land within the statute’s scope, and the claims alleged ordinary negligence rather than willful or malicious misconduct.
- Because a comparable private landowner would not be liable under Colorado law on these facts, the United States was not liable under the FTCA.

## Legal Principles

- The FTCA imposes liability on the United States only to the extent a private person would be liable under the law of the state where the alleged tort occurred.
- State recreational-use statutes that limit the duty owed by landowners to recreational entrants apply in FTCA actions when the United States is analogous to a private landowner.
- Under Colorado’s sightseer statute, a landowner opening rural land for recreation does not owe a duty of reasonable care to keep premises safe and is liable only for willful or malicious failure to guard or warn against a known dangerous condition.
- The FTCA comparison is to a private individual under like circumstances, not to municipal or governmental duties associated with maintaining public highways.

## Conclusion

The court held that Colorado’s recreational-use limitation on landowner liability controlled the FTCA claim, and because the estate alleged only negligence—not willful or malicious failure to guard or warn—the United States could not be held liable for the fatal accident on the national forest road.


Otteson v. United States, 622 F.2d 516 (10th Cir. 1980)