Owners and Occupiers of Land

A. Liability for Harm to Others Outside the Premises Caused by Objects On or From the
Premises
As to most conditions on land that arise in the state of nature the usual rule is there is no
duty upon the owner/occupier to protect persons outside the premises. There is an exception with
regard to trees; the owner/occupier is liable for negligence if he knows that a tree is defective and
fails to take reasonable precautions. Once an owner/occupier alters a condition of his land it
becomes an artificial one and he must exercise reasonable care for protections of those outside
the premises from injury from conditions on the premises.
B. Liability for harm to Others Who Come on the Premises
When persons are injured on the owner/occupiers land, limits on liability have
developed in terms of duty. Injured persons are divided into three rigidly enforced categories:
trespassers, licensees and invitees.
1) Trespassers Persons who enter the owner/occupiers land without consent or
privilege. The owner/occupiers only duty is to act reasonably to avoid harm to these
persons once the trespasser and the danger is discovered. Trespassers are said to
assume the risk of harm. It is the trespassers duty to look out for himself as to the
dangers on the land, whether the dangers are known or unknown to the
owner/occupier.
2) Licensees Anyone privileged to enter the land but who does not provide possible
economic or pecuniary benefit to the owner/occupier whose property is not open to
the public in general. Licensees (sometimes described as mere or bare licensees)
include social guests invited on the property buy the owner/occupier. The
owner/occupiers duty is to inform the licensee of known, hidden dangers. Licensees
take the premises as the owner/occupier does without a duty on the owner/occupier to
inspect.
3) Invitees Sometimes this category is described as business invitees. There are two
types who today are treated the same: persons who enter owner/occupiers land for
owner/occupiers economic benefit and the public in general where the land is open
to the public. sThe owner/occupiers duty is to inspect and discover possible dangers
and protect the invitee from foreseeable dangers. This is an affirmative duty.
A number of states, starting with California in Rowland v. Christensen in 1968, have
abandoned these categories altogether. They simply apply the usual reasonable person under the
circumstances test for negligence in all cases. As of 2000 eight other jurisdictions have followed
suit, abolishing all distinctions between entrants on land, and another 12 jurisdictions discarded
the distinctions between licensees and invitees but retained the traditional duty limitations toward
trespassing adults. Dobbs, The Law of Torts 616 (2000)
Oregon has retained the traditional categories despite a number of cases in which the
Oregon Supreme Court has had the opportunity to abandon them.
Premises liability when child trespassers or landlordtenant relationships are involved
have their own sets of rules not covered in this outline.