Property Owners and Injury Liability

Premises Liability and Injury Claims

When you go to a store, public place or even a friend's house, you expect that environment to be reasonably safe and free of hazards. This expectation is more than just common sense. Property owners have a legal duty to make sure they don't create hazardous situations that could lead to harm. When that legal duty is breached, it can lead to a civil lawsuit by the injured victim to collect damages from the negligent owner.

What is Premises Liability Law?

Premises liability law is a special subset of tort law that establishes when a property owner is liable to guests for injury. In most personal injury cases, the plaintiff has the burden of proving that the defendant owed him a duty and breached it. Sometimes this means proving negligence, sometimes it means showing that a professional standard of care wasn't upheld and sometimes it means proving intent. For each different type of personal injury case, this standard must be established and it must be clear to all involved exactly what the legal duty is and what behavior will be considered a breach.

Premises liability law sets those rules and makes clear what responsibility property owners have under the law. However, there isn't just one standard established. Different types of situations call for different requirements. For example, if you go to a store that has been opened up to customers, naturally you would expect greater protection from that store owner than you would from a friend who just casually invites you over for dinner. That's why there aren't usually yellow "Caution: Wet Floor" signs at your friend's house, but you'll often see them in public places.

What Are the Standards of Care?

To establish standards of care or requirements for property owners that make sense, premises liability law has created three different duties based on the status of guests. The exact nature of these duties and the requirements imposed is going to vary by state, but in general, the three categories are as follows:

1. Invitees

Invitees are those individuals who are invited somewhere for the primary benefit of the property owner. Invitees are almost always at the premises in order to do business with the owner. For example, if you go into Wal-Mart or a local pizza shop or restaurant, you are there to do business with them and you are there for the store owner's benefit. This doesn't have to be a large store, though. If a neighbor invites you over to sell you on his multi-level marketing business or to get you to buy some Tupperware from him, you may still be classified as an invitee in that case.

The standard of care owed to invitees is the highest standard of care. Premises owners usually have a duty to inspect the premises and to identify any dangers that exist. The owners then must correct those hazards if it is at all practical to do so and, if not, they must warn visitors of those dangers.

2. Licensees

Licensees are also invited guests, but they are given less protection than invitees. A licensee is someone who goes to a property for the mutual benefit of himself and that property's owner. For example, if you go over to your friend's house for dinner or stop by a neighbor's to have a cup of coffee, then you are probably a licensee in those cases.

Since you're still being welcomed into the property by the owner of it, that owner does have some obligations to you. He generally doesn't have to inspect the property to identify all potential hazards, but he does need to either correct any dangers he reasonably should know about or warn you about them. This means if your neighbor has a loose step on his front porch, he should warn you about it or fix it before you fall through the step and hurt yourself.

3. Trespassers

Trespassers are those who enter a property without permission. It may be surprising that they are owed any legal duty at all, but the law does impose one since it is still good public policy to make sure trespassers aren't in serious danger. Usually, under premises liability law, the minimum requirement is that a property owner cannot set dangerous traps for trespassers. Owners may also be required to warn or make safe any grave dangers if they know that they have trespassers on their land.

4. Children

Children are afforded special protection under the law. Usually, this means that when a child is harmed in any premises liability case, a special standard applies called the "attractive nuisance" standard. Under this rule, any property owner who has something that would be attractive or interesting to kids (like a swimming pool or a construction site) has to take special care to keep children safe. This may mean being required to secure the swimming pool with a fence that children cannot easily open, and it definitely means having to comply with all state and local safety codes for the type of "nuisance" that exists.

Proving Liability

When an injury occurs that is covered under premises liability, the burden is on the injured victim to prove his case. This means he needs to:

1. Demonstrate what legal duty was owed. To do this, he has to make a convincing argument about which group he should be categorized in.
2. Prove that the required level of care was breached.
3. Prove that the breach directly led to his injury.
4. Prove the nature and extent of the injuries so that the appropriate compensation for medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and emotional distress may be determined.

The burden of proof when a plaintiff files a premises liability lawsuit is preponderance of the evidence, which means he must prove that more likely than not, events unfolded the way he says they did.

Continued: Property Owners and Injury Liability: Page 2

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5. Defective Products and Dangerous Drugs
6. Car Accident Cases
7. Medical Malpractice

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