What You'll Learn

  • When premises rules apply 2. Traditional status categories
  • Child trespassers 4. Landlords and businesses
  • An exam sequence

Educational information only; not legal advice. This article is a general study aid and should be checked against current authority and course materials.

1. Know the Traditional Categories

Invitee Enters for a business purpose or as a member of the public where the property is held open. The possessor must inspect, discover, warn of, and make reasonably safe dangerous conditions. Licensee Enters with permission, commonly as a social guest. The possessor generally must warn of known hidden dangers and avoid willful or wanton harm.

Trespasser Enters without permission or exceeds the scope of permission. The ordinary duty is limited, but the possessor may not intentionally or recklessly injure the trespasser. Modern unitary rule Some jurisdictions treat status as one circumstance within a general duty of reasonable care rather than as a rigid category.

Visitor status can change. An invitee who enters a restricted area or remains beyond the scope of the invitation may become a licensee or trespasser for that part of the property.

2. Add the Important Exceptions and Business Rules

Premises questions often turn on notice, the foreseeability of repeated hazards, children, third-party crime, or control retained by a landlord.

Issue Rule focus Typical fact

Known or anticipated trespasser Reasonable care may arise after presence is discovered or trespassing becomes constant and foreseeable. Repeated use of tracks or a known shortcut.

Attractive nuisance Artificial condition, foreseeable child trespass, serious risk, child cannot appreciate danger, low burden compared with risk, failure to protect. Unlocked machinery, pools, or other artificial hazards.

Business invitee notice Actual notice, constructive notice, or a mode of operation that regularly creates the hazard. Old debris, missing inspection records, recurring self-service spills.

Open and obvious danger Obviousness may affect breach or comparative fault but does not always erase the duty where harm remains foreseeable. Customer must pass an obvious hazard to enter or shop.

Landlord duty Known concealed defects at leasing, common areas, agreed or negligent repairs, habitability, and foreseeable crime in controlled areas. Broken stairway or inadequate security in a lobby.

Third-party misconduct Reasonable precautions may be required when criminal or aggressive conduct is foreseeable. Known pattern of violence or inadequately secured common areas.

Key Takeaway

The outlines emphasize artificial conditions and the child's inability to appreciate the danger. The doctrine does not make a land possessor an insurer; liability turns on foreseeability and whether a reasonable, comparatively inexpensive precaution could reduce a serious risk.

Control is crucial

A defendant ordinarily must possess or control the area or condition. Landlords may remain responsible for common areas even after leasing individual units.

Separate premises from active negligence

When an employee actively creates the risk while performing an operation, ordinary reasonable-care principles may apply rather than the status-based land-condition rules.

3. Organize a Premises-Liability Answer

1 Identify the defendant's possession or control of the place where the injury occurred. 2 Decide whether the alleged danger is a land condition or independent active conduct. 3 Classify the plaintiff as invitee, licensee, trespasser, or child trespasser under the jurisdiction's approach. 4 State the corresponding inspection, repair, warning, or non-injury duty. 5 Analyze actual or constructive notice, recurring hazards, and reasonable precautions. 6 Address open-and-obvious danger, comparative fault, landlord control, and third-party misconduct where relevant.

Key Takeaway

A grocery store sells slices of pizza on flimsy paper to customers who eat while standing beside the counter. A patron slips on food debris. Because the operating method makes floor debris recurrent, the plaintiff may argue that the store did not need specific notice of the exact piece of food and should have adopted reasonable preventive measures.

Common Mistake

Do not assume that every accident on land is premises liability. Identify whether the claim attacks the condition of the property or a separate negligent act.

Primary Authorities

  • • Rowland v. Christian (reasonable care under all the circumstances).

  • • Campbell v. Weathers (public or business invitee).

  • • Ortega v. Kmart Corp. and Jasko v. F.W. Woolworth Co. (notice and mode of operation).

  • • Kline v. 1500 Massachusetts Avenue Apartment Corp. (landlord and foreseeable crime).

  • • Katko v. Briney (deadly devices may not protect property from trespassers).

Exam-ready conclusion

Premises liability begins with control, the nature of the danger, and the visitor's status. Apply the traditional category or modern unitary rule, then focus on notice, foreseeability, and reasonable precautions.