When someone is injured as a result of unsafe property or building conditions, they may have a right to make a claim for their damages against the owner of the property. Many homeowners and business owners fail to secure a sufficient level of liability insurance to cover the amount of any damages from an accident on their property. If the premises liability insurance is not sufficient to cover the claim, then the homeowner or business owner will become personally responsible for the damages.
The landowner's duty to protect an entrant on the land depends on how the entrant is classified. The entrant on the land can be classified as an invitee, licensee, or trespasser. The landowner's duties are different for each type of entrant. Of course, the landowner owes less of a duty to protect the trespasser then the other types of entrants. The landowner's duty of care is highest for business invitees.
Invitee
There are two types of invitees: a business visitor and public visitor.
Invitee: The Business Visitor
The business visitor includes those entrants on the land that share some business purpose with the landowner. For example, an entrant who is a prospective customer in a store, even if the customer does not intend to make a purchase, is a business invitee. All that is required is some prospective advantage to the landowner (for instance, the expectation that the entrant will return to that store when he is ready to make a purchase). An employee is also considered a business invitee.
The duty a landowner owes to a business visitor is to ensure the premises are free of defects and safe for the public as a whole. The landowner also has an obligation to repair any dangerous conditions on the property and to warn any business visitors of hidden defects that have not been repaired.
Invitee: The Public Visitor
Most courts today accept a broad definition of public invitation which includes any person on land open to the public or to the class of the public of which the entrant is a member. For example, visitors in hospitals and users of public parks, though having no business purpose on the land, are invitees and entitled to ordinary care.
Public invitees are usually people the landowner wishes to be on the land. Invitees are entitled to the same standard of care as business visitors. This may require only a warning in some cases, but, in other cases, it may require active efforts by the landowner to make the premises safe. For example, active effort is required if the landowner knew or should have known of the danger, such as ice on his property.
Licensee
A licensee can best be described as one whose presence on the land is tolerated or permitted and thus not a trespasser, but who technically does not qualify as an invitee. For example, social guests are usually considered licensees even if the landowner expressly invites the social guest onto his property provided the guest does not stray from the area of the property the homeowner intended.
Licensees are treated somewhat better than trespassers. The landowner is liable if he fails to exercise reasonable care with respect to dangers he created and of which he actually knows. Additionally, the landowner must warn of dangers on the property which he knows about and which are not ordinarily found on that kind of property.
Trespasser
An person is classified as a trespasser for purposes of determining the landowner's duty in any case in which the person is on the land without the landowner’s permission or consent.
Historically, the landowner owed only a duty not to intentionally or recklessly injure the trespasser. Therefore, the landowner was not liable for ordinary negligence toward the trespasser. However, today the landowner owes a duty not to willfully or deliberately cause injuries to a trespasser.
Premise Security Liability
A business owner has a duty to provide a safe place for its employees to work and its customers to visit. Claims against companies for injuries resulting from the criminal violence of third parties on the companies premises has increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Because the perpetrator of a rape, armed robbery, or murder is often not apprehended (or even if he is apprehended he is usually judgment proof), victims are seeking compensation for their injuries from the employer or landowner.
A recent study of premise security liability throughout the United States found that the main targets of these lawsuits were residential apartment building owners and hotel and motel owners. Retail owners, restaurants and bars, as well as a few other types of businesses made up the remaining 44% of companies sued for inadequate premise security liability.
Although a landowner has no legal duty to protect another from the criminal acts of a third person, a landowner's duty may arise when the criminal conduct of a third party is the foreseeable result of a landowner's negligence. When criminal conduct of a third party is foreseeable, the landowner has a duty to prevent injuries to invitees if it reasonably appears or should appear to them that other innocent persons may be injured on the property.
If a business is in a high crime area, then the business should hire a safety consultant to conduct an inspection. Through this inspection the consultant can determine the feasibility of taking additional safety measures. These measures can include installing security guards and security gates, security surveillance and alarm systems. Less expensive measures include installing proper locking devices on all doors. Additionally, in especially high crime areas, hotels and motels may have a duty to warn customers about the high-crime nature of the neighborhood and the importance of taking extra safety precautions to avoid being the victim of a crime.
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