Injured man at Burning Man Festival cannot sue government

David Kravets

Friday, Nov. 3, 2000 | 9:15 a.m.

SAN FRANCISCO - A Campbell man injured when a vehicle ran him over while he was in a tent camping at the Burning Man Festival in 1996 cannot sue the federal government for damages, a federal appeals court said Thursday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said 25-year-old David Reed, who suffered brain damage and was left disabled, agreed with a federal judge that the government was immune to his lawsuit.

The 1996 event was held on Bureau of Land Management acreage in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. The Mardi Gras-like celebration began in San Francisco in 1986 and moved to the Nevada desert in 1990. It combines wilderness camping and an offbeat mix of art and music in a surreal encampment known as Black Rock City.

Reed argued that the government should have required organizers to warn of the hazards of camping in certain areas, should have demanded that vehicles stay away from tent areas and should have better monitored the event, which attracted about 10,000.

A three-judge panel of the circuit said that the government, when issuing the permit, set a host of conditions at its discretion, which cannot be challenged.