For purposes of liability of land occupiers, what class of entrants is Jake considered part of? What are the rights of this class of entrants?
Jake will be considered a child trespasser in case he is a young teen for the purposes of liability of land occupiers. Here, the owner owes duty to act in preventing bodily harm to Jake as Mr. Smith did know of the potential dangers of the groundhog holes but he did not fix or repair them. Mr. Smith’s negligence caused personal injury to Jake.
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What special rule or doctrine could potentially lead to Mr. Smith’s liability to Jake?
Mr. Smith as a landowner owes duty to not allow specific artificial conditions of actions that cause serious body harm or risk of death to the trespasser, the child trespasser doctrine also requires that when he was aware of the danger, he needed to fix or repair the damage to prevent danger to the child trespasser (Dembour et al., 2020). The doctrine also indicates that Mr. Smith as a landowner should know that children are likely to get into the property, due to the inviting Christmas decorations, hence he has the duty adequately warn and protect the them from latent dangers through something like a warning sign.
All things considered, do you think Mr. Smith will be liable? Why or why not?
Yes. Because he neglected to fix the ground holes and the faulty electrical connection for the mini twinkle lights which he was aware would cause personal injury. The landowner needs to repair and fix any condition on land that could cause serious personal harm or death to the trespasser. There was a foreseeable risk of personal injury, the landowner could address this risk but Mr. Smith did not, and he took no remedial actions.
Mr. Smith wants to sue Jake for shorting out all the decorations and ruining the circuit. For what tort would he do so? Will Jake be held liable? Explain.
Yes. Jake entered the property without the landowners, Mr. Smith’s permission and his fall caused damage by shorting out the circuit supporting Mr. Smith’s decoration.
References
Dembour, M.-B., Turner, J., & Barrow, C. (2020). When are occupiers in breach of their duty of care? The advantages of a systematic test. Legal Studies , 1–31. https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8641715/file/8641717.pdf
