Premises Liability Flashcards
Trespasser
Unknown trespasser: Property owner does not owe duty to unknown trespasser.
Known trespasser: Property owner owes duty to warn or repair ARTIFICIAL conditions that have high risk of death or serious bodily injury to trespassers that owner knows or reasonably should know of
Business Invitee - Relevant Standard of Care
Invitee: person who enters property for business purpose related to owner
* Invitee loses status if he exceeds scope of invitation
Relevant standard of care (DUTY):
* Duty to warn of nonobvious dangers or to make them safe
* Duty to make reasonable inspections
* Duty to use reasonable care to prevent injury to patrons from third persons (for businesses open to public for profit)
Must prove:
* Breach: D fell below standard of care
* Actual cause
* Proximate cause
* Damages
Child Trespasser
Under attractive nuisance doctrine, property owner owes duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid foreseeable risk of harm to children from artificial conditions.
Prima facie case for attractive nuisance requires showing:
(i) there is dangerous condition on land that owner knows of
(ii) owner knows/should know children are in vicinity of dangerous condition
(iii) condition is likely to cause injury because a child cannot understand the risk
(iv) expense of remedying situation is small compared to magnitude of risk to child
Child held to standard of care of children of like age, intelligence, and experience (subjective) unless child is engaged in adult activities (then use reasonable person standard)
Defenses - Comparative/Contributory Negligence
If P’s negligence contributed to injury:
(a) Under traditional contributory negligence rules, P barred from recovery
* P who knowingly and voluntarily assumed risk of injury also barred from recovery
(b) Under modern comparative negligence rules, P’s damages are reduced accordingly
* Modern rules replaced traditional contributory negligence and implied assumption of risk rules
