As the weather finally cools, the days get shorter, and the busy holiday season approaches, we start planning parties, holiday shopping, and marketing campaigns. While you plan to invite guests into your home and customers into your business, it is important to keep in mind what protections that you as a landowner or business proprietor, owe to your guests and customers. A landowner or business proprietor typically owes a duty to make the area reasonably safe for all customers, guests, and sometimes even trespassers. However, the duty owed is different for each category of people. So, what precautions must you take to make your store, office, home, or property “safe”?
For business owners, the holidays invite many customers into your businesses and onto your property. A business owner is obligated to protect customers from (1) dangerous conditions, even something as minor as slippery floors, that are (2) hidden and (3) either known to the landowner or which could have been discovered by a reasonable inspection. This is your typical “slip and fall” case. A customer will allege that a business should have known the floor was slippery and therefore is at fault for the customer’s injuries. However, it is important to note that customers will lose their protected status if they go beyond the scope of their invitation, such as when they enter an “employees only” section.
Anyone who enters onto property with the landowner’s permission for non-business purposes, such as your guests at the holiday party, the friend you gave permission to hunt on your land, or the coworkers you invited over to watch an OU football game, is a “licensee.” A landowner must warn licensees of conditions that are (1) hidden and (2) known to the landowner such as that in-ground pool that you haven’t gotten around to closing for the season.
Finally, even though you never allowed it, and may not even know they’re on your land, you may still owe a duty to trespasser. A “known or anticipated” trespasser, such as the neighborhood kid that cuts across your lawn on his way to the bus stop, must be warned of any conditions that are (1) artificial (2) highly dangerous (3) hidden and (4) known to the land possesses in advance-also known as “hidden man-made death traps.” The good news is that “unknown” trespassers are owed no duty. This means that you don’t have to do anything to make the area safe or protect these trespassers.
So, as we enter this new season, protect yourself and your business by paying attention to those customers tracking in snow and mud, building a gate around those in-ground pools, and putting up a warning if you’ve dug a deep trench in the backyard.