Injured Runner Loses Missouri Claim After Turkey-Hunt Shooting on Public Trail

A man was shot while running on a public trail in a Missouri conservation area, underwent multiple surgeries, and still lost his negligence case against the landowner on summary judgment. That is the practical punch of Cay v. Polson, No. ED113814 (Mo. Ct. App. E.D. May 26, 2026), a new Missouri Court of Appeals decision involving an injured trail runner, a turkey hunter, and the broad protection landowners can get under Missouri’s Recreational Use Act.

For injured readers, this was a bad appellate result. The Eastern District held that the Missouri Department of Conservation was protected by recreational-use immunity and that the plaintiffs failed to create a real fact dispute on the statute’s gross-negligence exception.

What Happened at Weldon Spring

According to the opinion, Fred Cay was running on the Lewis Trail in the Weldon Spring Conservation Area in St. Charles County on May 8, 2021, when turkey hunter Mark Polson shot him. The conservation area was owned and operated by the Missouri Department of Conservation, and Cay was using the trail for recreation without paying an entry charge.

The shooting was severe enough that Cay had to be taken by helicopter to Mercy Hospital in St. Louis County, where he underwent multiple surgeries. He and his wife then sued Polson and MDC, alleging negligence, premises liability, and loss of consortium. Their theory against MDC was that it was grossly negligent in allowing hunting too close to popular pedestrian trails, failing to warn trail users adequately, and directing hunting activity near areas heavily used by the public.

Why MDC Won on Summary Judgment

The key legal issue was Missouri’s Recreational Use Act, which generally protects landowners who open land to the public free of charge for recreation. Because MDC showed that it owned the property, that Cay entered it for recreational running, and that he paid no fee, the court held MDC made a prima facie showing that the statute barred the claims unless an exception applied.

The plaintiffs relied on the Act’s gross-negligence exception. But the Court of Appeals said their summary-judgment showing did not do enough. Their main additional facts came from an expert who said MDC was grossly negligent and that an injury like this was foreseeable and inevitable. The court treated those statements as legal conclusions rather than real facts, which meant they were not enough to create a genuine issue for trial.

That procedural point mattered. The opinion did not say a landowner can never face liability when hunting and trail use overlap. In fact, the court specifically said it was not ruling out the possibility that allowing hunting on land could qualify for an exception to immunity in a different case. This case turned on the plaintiffs’ failure to build a summary-judgment record with concrete admissible facts strong enough to trigger that exception.

Why This Case Matters for Injury Claims

This opinion is a reminder that serious injury cases can rise or fall on immunity rules and record-building, not just on how troubling the underlying facts are. An injured plaintiff may have a compelling story and still lose if the defendant can invoke a statute like the Recreational Use Act and the plaintiff does not answer it with specific factual support that fits the exception.

That is especially important in cases involving public land, unsafe property conditions, or overlapping recreational uses. Henderson Law Firm’s premises liability page explains how liability and notice issues can shape recovery when a dangerous condition or dangerous property use causes serious injury.

Takeaway

The practical lesson from Cay v. Polson is that this was a bad result for the injured runner on appeal, but not necessarily because the court thought the safety concerns were trivial. The more important point is that recreational-use immunity is powerful, and plaintiffs need specific admissible facts to fit within exceptions like gross negligence. After a serious accident on public or private land, experienced counsel can help identify every viable theory, develop the factual record early, and work to maximize recovery before immunity defenses shut the case down.