Alabama Personal Injury Lawyers Settle Premise Liability Lawsuit – Part One
The Dothan, Alabama personal injury lawyers of the Gartlan Injury Law settled a premise liability lawsuit that had been filed in the circuit court with a jury demand on behalf of an Alabama minor child that was injured by an artificial condition while was trespassing on the land of a neighbor.
Premises liability lawsuits can be brought against the party who is responsible for maintaining the property.
Under Alabama Law “A possessor of land owes a duty to exercise reasonable care to eliminate an artificial condition on land that poses a danger to children.” Laster ex rel. Laster v. Norfolk S. Ry. Co., Inc., 13 So. 3d 922, 927 (Ala. 2009). Laster says that the threshold issue in deciding whether the conventional duty of care (duty only to avoid wantonly or negligently injuring trespassers) or the §339 duty of care is applied is whether the condition that injured the trespassing child is natural or artificial. The Supreme Court of Minnesota in Doren v. Northwestern Baptist Hosp. Ass’n, 60 N.W.2d 361 (Minn. 1953) also uses §339 for the duty of care to be applied to child trespassers. (They were using the 1934 version. The 1965 version has a few minor changes, including the addition of part (e)). Note that the heightened duty applies only if the child was alone or accompanied by other children. If there was an adult there, the heightened standards do not apply. See Tudors v. Kell 739 So.2d 1069 (Ala. 1999)).
Alabama Courts have adopted 2 Restatement (Second) of Torts: Artificial Conditions Highly Dangerous to Trespassing Children § 339 (1965), replacing the earlier theories of attractive nuisance and straight-negligence the Court had previously applied. Tolbert v. Gulsby, 333 So.2d at 135. Laster ex rel. Laster v. Norfolk S. Ry. Co., Inc., 13 So. 3d 922, 927 (Ala. 2009).
The Dothan, Alabama personal injury lawyers of the Gartlan Injury Law will conclude this in part two (2) of this series about a premise liability case involving a child trespasser, so please continue to follow along.
Aaron Gartlan is a graduate of Troy University and the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law who focuses his practice exclusively on representing those injured by the wrongdoing of others. He is member of the National Trial Lawyers Association’s Top 100 Trial Lawyers, Million Dollar Advocates Forum and Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum. In addition to his legal practice, Aaron teaches Business Law as an adjunct instructor at Troy University’s Sorrell College of Business and serves as a field artillery sergeant in the Alabama National Guard.
