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Premises liability, like all negligence law, requires that:
- Defendant owed Plaintiff a duty;
- Defendant breached that duty;
- Plaintiff suffered an injury resulting from that breach of duty; and
- Plaintiff sustained damages from the injury.
Also, as in all negligence law, Premises cases require that the possessor of land act with
reasonable care. What makes premises cases different from other kinds of negligence law is that
“reasonableness” varies depending upon the possessor of land’s relationship with the injured
party.
The three legal terms used to describe relationships in Premises law are: Invitee, Licensee, and
Trespasser.
An Invitee is someone on a possessor of land’s premises who gives the possessor an economic
benefit by being there. Essentially, this involves a business relationship. It can be broadly
interpreted. A possessor of land owes an Invitee the highest degree of care. A possessor of land
must keep the premises safe for an Invitee’s use. That generally means that a possessor of land
has a duty to inspect, maintain and warn to protect Invitees on their land.
The question for you would be: why were you on the property? If you were there as a babysitter
or to deliver groceries or to help with a task that would ordinarily require compensation, then
you may be considered an Invitee.
If you were on the premises for a social visit with permission, you will likely be considered a
Licensee. A possessor of land’s duty to a Licensee is less than to an Invitee. A possessor of land
is liable for harm caused to a Licensee injured on property if all of the below exist:
- The possessor of land knew or should have known of the dangerous condition;
- The possessor should have expected that the Licensee would not discover the condition;
- The possessor failed to use reasonable care to fix the condition or to warn the Licensee;
- The Licensee did not know about the condition and the risk it posed.
Let’s use a broken hand rail as an example. If the hand rail on your porch looks fine but is, in
fact, rotted out on the inside, you have a duty to fix it or to warn every person who comes to your
house about that rail. The reason is that you know about the problem but your guests do not and
they could not discover the danger unless you warn them. It comes down to this: can your house
guest be reasonably expected to know that the danger exists? If not, then the guest cannot
protect herself from the danger and so you have a duty to fix the danger or warn every guest.
If you were on property without express or implied permission, then you were a Trespasser and
were owed the lowest duty of care. Generally, a landowner is not responsible to a Trespasser
unless the landowner commits a willful or wanton act that results in injury to the Trespasser.
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