A common situation is where a person slips on wet flooring, or loose rock at a business, falls and injures them self. The injured person ends up going to the hospital and leaving with substantial hospital bills. They are left wondering, do I have to pay these bills? How can I be expected to understand everything that is going on?
Clooten Law has represented clients in Hermiston and the surrounding area for claims related to premises liability. These are usually cases where a client has been at a local business, or harmed by another land owner’s hazardous condition created on land. Let our attorneys in Hermiston or Pendleton meet with you and explain your legal options related to your particular injury. In the next paragraphs, we describe in further detail some of the requirements related to a landowner’s or business owner’s duties to others.
The person in possession and control of land is obligated to cause no unreasonable harm to others in the area. The general rule is now whether the person in possession and control of land, “unreasonably created a foreseeable risk to a protected interest of the kind of harm that befell the plaintiff.” However, a person in possession may have a special duty to a person in the vicinity of their land if there is a special duty owed.
From the Oregon State Bar: In Oregon, the duty owed by an occupier of land to a visitor is dictated by the visitor’s status. Stewart ex rel. Hill v. Kralman, 240 Or App 510, 517, 248 P3d 6 (2011). Three categories of visitor status exist in Oregon: invitee, licensee, and trespasser. Walsh v. C & K Market, Inc., 171 Or App 536, 539, 16 P3d 1179 (2000). Although there is some overlap, in general the duty of care owed by an occupier of land to an invitee is greater than that owed to a licensee, and the duty owed to a licensee is greater than that owed to a trespasser.
A visitor’s status can change depending on the time of the injury. Hansen v. Cohen, 203 Or 157, 163, 276 P2d 391, 278 P2d 898 (1954) (“plaintiff was unlawfully using the defendants’ premises for purposes or in ways other than those for which they were intended or to which his invitation extended”); Rich, 245 Or at 192–193 (even though plaintiff originally entered sawmill as invitee, jury could have found that he was trespasser at time he was attempting to straighten disarranged lumber without being asked to do so).
A “business invitee” is given special status on the assumption that there is or may be an economic advantage to the possessor of the premises for having the invitee present, thus imposing on the possessor a duty to use due care for the business invitee’s safety. In Johnson v. Short, 213 Or App 255, 262–263, 160 P3d 1004 (2007), the court elaborated on the definition of business invitee by quoting the Restatement (Second) of Torts §332, comment e (1965):
Business visitors fall into two classes. The first includes persons who are invited to come upon the land for a purpose connected with the business for which the land is held open to the public, as where a person enters a shop to make a purchase, or to look at goods on display
The second class includes those who come upon land not open to the public, for a purpose connected with business which the possessor conducts upon the land, or for a purpose connected with their own business which is connected with any purpose, business or otherwise, for which the possessor uses the land. Thus a truck driver from a provision store who enters to deliver goods to a private residence is a business visitor; and so is a workman who comes to make alterations or repairs on land used for residence purposes.
“A licensee is one who comes upon the premises for his own purposes with the consent of the possessor.” Rich v. Tite-Knot Pine Mill, 245 Or 185, 191, 421 P2d 370 (1966); Nelsen v. Nelsen, 174 Or App 252, 256, 23 P3d 424 (2001) (licensee is person who, with possessor’s permission, comes upon premises for licensee’s own purposes, often social) Think of this person like a dinner guest. I licensee has a duty to warn guests of pits, traps an concealed dangers.
Generally, a premises owner or occupier owes no duty to a “trespasser” other than to avoid injuring the trespasser willfully or wantonly. Hansen v. Cohen, 203 Or 157, 163, 276 P2d 391 (1954) (when patron lingered to engage in gambling, he was on “an unlawful quest of his own at the time of the fracas, [and] defendants owed him no duty other than to avoid injuring him willfully or wantonly”); Baker v. Lane County, 28 Or App 53, 56, 558 P2d 1247 (1977). Stated differently, a possessor of land is not liable to a trespasser for physical harm caused by the possessor’s failure to exercise reasonable care (a) to put the land in a condition reasonably safe for the trespasser’s reception or (b) to carry on the possessor’s activities so as not to endanger the trespasser. Denton v. L.W. Vail Co., Inc., 23 Or App 28, 35, 541 P2d 511 (1975) (quoting with approval the Restatement (Second) of Torts §333 (1965))