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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey beach town is using some blunt legal arguments to resist a demand by survivors of a man who plunged into an inlet and drowned when the sand gave way beneath his feet that the section of beach be permanently closed.
North Wildwood acknowledges the 2012 death of Brad Smith of Horsham, Pennsylvania was a tragedy.
But it also asserts that Smith's family will never go back there; that closing the beach would ruin things for others who still want to go there, and that the unstable sand condition that claimed his life is part of nature and not something the town is obligated to fix.
Smith's family is suing North Wildwood for damages and seeking closure of the beach where he died.
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