The 2003 Legislature enacted a law that then-Attorney General Mark Bennett said would "assure both more safety for the public and fair protection for the state" when hikers are injured or killed on state trails. As a Kauai judge has ruled, the law does not let the state off the hook when it neglects to put up signs of danger where needed.

When visitors Elizabeth Brem and Paula Ramirez of Oregon came upon two trails on their hike back from the lagoon of Opaekaa Falls on Kauai in December 2006, they came upon two trails. One on the left carried a sign warning "Danger — Keep Out — Hazardous Conditions." So they took the trail on the right, where dense foliage obscured the vertical drop of a steep cliff. Both women, horribly, slipped to their death.

Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe blamed improper placement of the sign for the tragic event. The state "impliedly invited" the women to take the righthand trail by not posting a danger sign on it, she decided. The state should have known about the gaffe six months earlier, when a 16-year-old boy slipped and fell over the cliff’s edge and was rescued by Kauai firefighters after landing in a tree.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources may not have been informed of that incident — but that’s not to say it was unaware of the danger. A department officer was in the area of the trail in 2003 and noticed that people were putting themselves in danger. He submitted an "investigative report" to his supervisor, who filed a memo recommending that "access to this area be closed off, with signs, stating ‘Closed Area.’" That was when Wayne Souza, the state parks superintendent for Kauai, decided to have the "Keep Out" sign posted, according to Judge Watanabe’s ruling. That single warning sign, though, was posted on the wrong trail.

A judge ruled in 2002 that the state had been negligent in failing to adequately warn visitors of the falling-rock hazards at Sacred Falls State Park, where eight people were killed and 50 others injured in a rockslide, one of the deadliest natural disasters in Hawaii’s history. The signs posted there were poorly maintained and did not warn park users of severe rock hazards.

The law enacted at the following session of the Legislature did not release authorities from their obligation to calculate and warn of potential dangers and from properly maintaining hiking trails and parks.

As Bennett mentioned, it required the state to do an appropriate risk assessment and then create a plan for warning signs along public trails.

A separate trial will determine the amount of compensation the state will be required to pay the grieving Brem and Ramirez families.

The judge’s ruling needs to remind DLNR that it has a serious obligation — sometimes one of life or death — to alert people to hazards in all areas of public use.