Special Relationships and Statuses Variable Duties: Landowners - Jan. 18 Flashcards
What is the duty landowners owe to trespassers? (Feldman)
The person in possession of the property has a duty “not to do any willful or wanton or aggressive act with respect to [a trespasser’s] safety.” This duty has been interpreted to include the duty to not maintain “traps,” which are generally defined as “hidden dangers intentionally placed to injure [trespassers].”
What is the exception for child trespassers? (Feldman)
Due care must be exercised to protect child trespassers against attractive nuisances.
What is an attractive nuisance? (Feldman)
(a) The place where the condition exists is one upon which the possessor knows or has reason to know that children are likely to trespass; and
(b) The condition is one of which the possessor knows or has reason to know will involve an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm to such children; and
(c) The children do not discover or realize the risk involved in intermeddling or coming within the dangerous area; and
(d) The utility to the possessor of maintaining the condition and the burden of eliminating the danger are slight compared with the risk to the children involved, and;
(e) The possessor fails to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger or otherwise to protect the children.
What is a trespasser? (Feldman)
Trespassers enter upon property without the express or implied consent of the person in possession of the property.
What is a licensee? (Feldman)
Licensees enter or remain upon property with the implied or express consent of the person in possession, but their presence on the property is not an economic benefit to the landowner.
Ex: Social guests are licensees
What is the duty landowners owe to licensees? (Feldman)
“[A] licensee * * * must take the premises as he finds them * * * the owner thereof is liable only if he is found to have committed affirmative acts of negligence or if a trap existed or there was a concealed danger not likely to be discovered. There is only a duty to warn of known dangerous defects which the defendant should know or suspect that the licensee will not discover himself after a reasonable inspection of the premises.” Basso.
What is an invitee? (Feldman)
Under the original “economic benefit” theory, an invitee was a person on the property to transact business with its owner.
Ex: A customer
What is the duty landowners owe to invitees? (Feldman)
Landowners owe invitees “a duty to exercise reasonable care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition.” Breitel concurrence.
What are some other duties landowners have?
(a) “[I]n some States, social guests have been elevated from the licensee to the
invitee category.
(b) Public employees, such as firemen and policemen, have been placed in a sui generis class, to whom is owed a duty of reasonable care to keep in a safe condition those parts of the premises which are used as the ordinary means of access, and warn such employees, known to be on the property, of unforeseeably dangerous conditions.”
