The owners of a volcano are denying responsibility for visitors' safety after 22 deaths

22.09.2023 - 12:49 / insider.com

The landowners of a volcano that erupted in 2019, killing 22 people and injuring 25 others, have rejected arguments from workplace safety regulators that they bear legal responsibility for visitors' safety.

Their closing argument on Thursday, which marked the end of a nearly two-month trial, was the first time the island's owners had advanced a defense against the charges, according to The Guardian.

White Island/Whakaari, 30 miles off the coast of New Zealand, exploded on December 9, 2019.

Of the 22 people who died that day, 17 of them were Australians, many of whom were cruise ship passengers, The Guardian reported.

The trial included accounts from survivors who testified that they were unaware of the risks when they visited the crater of Whakaari.

In the aftermath of the disaster, the New Zealand government agency WorkSafe charged several entities for health and safety breaches relating to the eruption, including tourism firms, science agencies, and the island's owners, according to The Guardian.

Six organizations admitted to the accounts against them before the trial's conclusion, with charges dismissed against five other firms or people, the newspaper reported.

The remaining defendant was Whakaari Management Limited (WML), which owns the land that encompasses the volcano and which grants licenses to tourism operators on the island. 

The trial saw debate over whether WML should be considered an active manager with legal responsibilities for the safety of businesses operating on the land, and whether the company had taken actions that fulfilled its obligations.

The prosecution argued that the owners of WML earned substantial profits from the licenses and therefore had legal obligations under the law toward the tourists whose "fees funded its business," per The Guardian.

WML is jointly owned by three brothers — Andrew, James, and Peter Buttle. Individual charges against them were dismissed last month.

Lawyers for the company said it was set up solely to manage the licensing of businesses, adding that it had no presence on the island and no active control of the day-to-day activities on the land, The Guardian reported.

"Whakaari is not a business, it's an island," James Cairney, a lawyer for WML, said.

"Was it hazardous? Yes. WML doesn't shy away from that," he added, according to The Guardian. "Granting rights of access to an active volcano is really just … the landowner granting rights of access to hazardous natural land, which occurs all over New Zealand all the time."

He cautioned against the idea that "a single, private company" should be responsible for determining the societal risk associated with an activity, according to The Guardian.

Cairney and Kristy McDonald, the prosecutor, did not