What if someone gets hurt on your property? Could you be held responsible?
It depends on how he got on your property in the first place.
Generally, you have a duty as a homeowner to exercise reasonable care in the maintenance of your property for the protection of lawful visitors. If you know you have a loose brick on the steps leading to your front door and a lawful visitor turns his ankle because the brick pops out, you could be held liable.
There are a number of rules and issues with variations of this general framework: slip-and-fall and trip-and-fall cases, dog attacks and others. The standards of care, set forth in case law and statutes, vary and depend on a number of factors.
A common situation is when a person who is not a trespasser comes to your home and falls on ice. Generally, you do not have a duty to warn a lawful visitor of an obviously unsafe condition, or an unsafe condition of which a lawful visitor has as much knowledge as you do.
Another common situation involves someone who slips and falls and is injured at your business. The injured party not only has to show you are at fault but cannot be guilty of contributory negligence. Put another way, if you are at fault, generally, and the injured party is at fault, too, you are not liable.
North Carolina is one of a few states that still have a contributory negligence standard, not a comparative negligence standard, for injured parties wherever those injuries occur, although there are limited exceptions.
What about our duty to trespassers? The laws on this were modified Oct. 1.
Generally, if you are in lawful possession of land, either as an owner, a tenant or otherwise, you do not owe a duty of care to a trespasser. There are three main exceptions.
- You are guilty of willful or wanton conduct, or you intentionally caused harm to a trespasser, except that you may use reasonable force to repel a trespasser who has entered the land or a building with the intent to commit a crime.
- You knew children were likely to trespass at the location where there was a dangerous condition; you knew or should have known the children would be at an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death; the children did not discover the condition; you could have eliminated the danger easily, you did not do so, and a child gets hurt as a result.
- If you discovered the trespasser in a position of peril or helplessness on the property and you failed to exercise ordinary care not to injure the trespasser.
There are various other definitions and rules in N.C. General Statute Chapter 38B-1, and following.
Years ago I had a client who knew that children were racing four-wheelers down an old logging road on his property. The owner got mad and put up a chain across the road that could not be seen at night. A teenager got hurt when his four-wheeler hit the chain and it threw him. This was a problem, even under the old law.
When in doubt, assume the higher duty of care. Talk about potential problems with your insurance company and your lawyer. And consider purchasing an all-risk umbrella policy, in case you have a serious injury on your property.
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