Timothy F. Rayne, Esquire

The potential legal liability of landowners for accidents occurring on their property requires proof of the four elements of negligence: a legal duty of care; a breach of that duty (carelessness); a connection between the breach of duty and the accident; and actual damages resulting from the accident. In any case against a property owner, the duty owed to the person who is injured on the property depends on whether the injured person is considered a Trespasser, a Licensee, or an Invitee. This article explains those three types of visitors and the legal duty owed to each.

Trespassers
A Trespasser is a person who is on land without the owner's consent. Property owners owe Trespassers only a minimal legal duty. The property owner has no duty to make the property reasonably safe or to warn Trespassers of dangerous conditions. The only duty the landowner has is to refrain from intentionally, willfully or wantonly inflicting injury on the Trespasser. For example, if the property owner operates a shooting range on the property, a Trespasser would not have a legal case after getting shot by a stray bullet unless he could prove that the property owner intended to shoot him.

Licensees
A Licensee is a person who is on the property with the owner's consent, but not there for business purposes or because the land is held open to the public. Licensees include social guests or anyone given consent to be on the property who would not qualify as an Invitee.

Licensees are owed a higher degree of care compared to Trespassers. Landowners have a duty to use reasonable care not to injure Licensees and have a duty to either make known dangerous conditions safe or warn the Licensee of the known danger. For example, if a property owner keeps a dangerous dog on part of the property, he would have to either control the dog or warn Licensees about the dog. A Trespasser, on the other hand, would be owed no such courtesy.

Invitees
Pennsylvania law requires the highest duty of care to Invitees. Just because you are invited to visit someone's property that does not necessarily qualify you as an "Invitee" under the law. There are two types of Invitees: business visitors and public invitees. Business visitors are people invited to enter or remain on a property for a purpose related to the business of the property owner. Business visitors include store patrons, professional office clients, delivery persons, sales persons and others who have entered land for purposes related to the owner's business. Public invitees are people who enter land for a purpose for which the land is held open to the public. Visitors at a public museum, park or playground would qualify as public invitees.

The duty which a property owner owes to an Invitee is to maintain the property in a reasonably safe condition. That duty requires that the property owner undertake reasonable inspections to discover dangerous conditions and either correct the dangerous conditions or warn the Invitees of the danger.

The key distinction between the duty owed to a Licensee and an Invitee is that an Invitee is entitled to assume that the property owner has inspected the property and made it reasonably safe. For example, shoppers in a grocery store can walk down the aisles under the assumption that the store owner is conducting inspections to make sure that the floors are kept free from slippery and dangerous conditions. If a slippery condition, like spilled juice, is not discovered and cleaned up within a reasonable period of time, the store owner would be held liable for injuries caused by a shopper slipping and falling on the juice. On the contrary, mere Licensees are not owed such a duty of reasonable inspection.

Whether or not legal liability exists in a particular case often depends on the status of the injured person as a Trespasser, Licensee, or Invitee, so it is important to understand the distinction between the three.

MacElree Harvey
17 West Miner Street
Post Office Box 660
West Chester, PA 19381–0660
p | 610.436.0100
f | 610.430.7885
f | 610.429.4486
e | info@macelree.com