In recognizing that vast timberlands in Maine are in private hands, the State created a law that provides legal protection to those landowners who allow free access to those lands for recreational purposes . The Recreational Use Statute, 14 M.S.R.A. § 159-A, protects a landowner from liability if a person is injured while recreating on the landowners property.

The law provides that as long as the landowner is not charging for the use of their land when used for recreational purposes, (and they have not willfully created any dangerous conditions on the land), they will not be liable to anyone who might be injured while on the property. Allowing access to large areas of timberlands in the northern part of the State may have been the impetus of the law, but it is not limited to those areas. Any improved or unimproved land is included in the law. The law also covers not just land, but structures and water bodies flowing through or standing on those lands.

The statute defines "recreational and harvesting activities" broadly as "including, but not limited to, hunting, fishing, trapping, camping, environmental education and research, hiking, recreational caving, sight-seeing, operating snow-traveling and all-terrain vehicles, skiing, hang-gliding, dog sledding, equine activities, boating, sailing, canoeing, rafting, biking, picnicking, swimming or activities involving the harvesting or gathering of forest, field or marine products" The only things it specifically excludes are commercial agriculture or timber harvesting.

Overall the law favors landowners, in the way it was written, and how it has been applied in the courts. Anyone injured on someone’s land needs to be very careful in deciding to bring a lawsuit, because if they are not successful the law provides that they must pay the landowner’s legal costs incurred in fighting the lawsuit.

The courts have consistently ruled in favor of landowners in lawsuits, applying the statute broadly. One of the main issues that has been a subject of litigation is when someone using the land does pay for part of their use of the land, but that payment is not considered "consideration" (i.e., compensation) under the law. This is significant because if there is payment, then the law does not apply, and the landowner owes a duty of reasonable care to those of their land. If the law does apply, there is essentially no duty of care owned to those on the land.

There are two primary cases where the Courts have rejected claims made by injured parties that they had made payments that would have removed the landowner from the protection of the law. In one case there was a toll paid by the injured party to use a road that went across several landowners properties. In another, the injured party rented a lot on the property, and they were allowed to put up a temporary camp on that lot. In both cases the Maine courts found that the payments made by the injured parties was not specifically for the recreational use of the property, therefore landowners were still protected by the law.

Overall the law serves its purpose well in that lets landowners allow people onto their land without being concerned with lawsuits, and in return allows thousands of acres of private land to be open the general public to use. Landowners benefit by the way the law was written, and how the courts have applied the law, landowners do not have much to worry about with letting people on their land. And everyone else benefits because the law encourages landowners, who hold vast areas of land in Maine, to open that land without charging for access.