Case Law Behind Premises Liability
Premises liability (see our Slip and Fall practice area page) is an area of personal injury law that includes things such as slip and fall accidents and any other injury that occurs due to an unsafe condition of property. Prior to 1968 premises liability was more limited and took into consideration—in essence whether the injured party was legally or illegally on someone’s property. Consider the example of a trespasser or thief. Indeed the legal terms of “trespasser,” “invitee” and “licensee” were used to determine if an injured party has the legal right to be on the property on which the injury occurred.
The scope of the law was widened considerably in 1968 with the decision of the Supreme Court of California in the case Rowland v. Christian. Rowland was a guest in Christian’s apartment and injured himself on a broken water faucet handle. While Christian (the tenant of the apartment) had notified the landlord about the broken handle, she did not tell her guest.
The decision in this case (in favor of Rowland) in effect discarded previous precedents in premises liability matters and focused instead on a general “duty of care.” The portion of the justices’ decision that is often referred to appears below:
A man’s life or limb does not become less worthy of protection by the law nor a loss less worthy of compensation under the law because he has come upon the land of another without permission or with permission but without a business purpose. Reasonable people do not ordinarily vary their conduct depending upon such matters, and to focus upon the status of the injured party as a trespasser, licensee, or invitee in order to determine the question whether the landowner has a duty of care, is contrary to our modern social mores and humanitarian values. The common law rules obscure rather than illuminate the proper considerations which should govern determination of the question of duty.
Since the Court’s decision, premises liability in California has focused less on narrower aspects such as the plaintiff’s position vis a vis the defendant (and his/her property) and more on the defendant’s duty of care. At its most basic, this duty of care means that owners of property have a specific duty to discover what items on or areas of their property that may be a hazard or may cause injury to those who come onto that property. They must take reasonable steps to eliminate those things that are potentially dangerous.
Where this comes into play in personal injury cases includes instances where the property owner did not perform reasonable inspections to determine if there was something unsafe on his property or accidents such as slip and fall accidents where a property owner did not take steps to remove a hazard such as standing water or repair a defective step that he knew about. In both instances the owners could reasonably have foreseen the potential for injury yet did not address the unsafe condition by either fixing it or warning others about it.
The Job of an Orange County Slip and Fall Lawyer
The task of a personal injury lawyer is to show that the property owner, through neglect of this duty of care standard failed to use reasonable care to discover any unsafe conditions and to repair, replace, or give adequate warning of anything that could be reasonably expected to harm others. In Tustin, that is the job of Kyle Scott, who in over 28 years of personal injury practice, has tried or settled just such premises liability cases in favor of dozens of clients. If you have been injured on the property of another, the first step is to consult an attorney steeped in premises liability law. Call Kyle Scott Law at 714-544-1460 to schedule a free consultation.