Keep Your Property Safe for Foreseen and Unforeseen Visitors

When you invite a guest into your home, whether it’s for a dinner party or to do repairs, you are accepting responsibility for any injuries that could occur on your property due to unsafe conditions. Even in the instance a trespasser is injured, you bear some responsibility so it’s best to keep your property safe, at least for the sake of the unknown.

There are three different classifications of people that can come onto your property. The first is an invitee. When a homeowner invites someone to enter the premises, the home owner is taking on the duty of keep the area safe so that the person doesn’t injure themselves. Contractors or your satellite installation person are typically considered an invitee.

The second classification is a licensee. A licensee is a person that has no contractual relation to the property owner but is allowed to be on the property, this is typically a social guest. The home owner has no duty to the licensee for obvious conditions, but rather conditions that are concealed. However, a condition that is obvious during the day time becomes impossible to see at night.

The third is classification is a trespasser. It is surprising to many home owners that they have a duty to protect these people as well considering they were not invited on to the property. The home owner has no duty to prevent the trespasser from harm until the homeowner is aware of the uninvited person. Only then does the property owner have a duty to avoid injuring the trespasser. Also, the homeowner is not allowed to intentionally inflict harm on the trespasser by preparing traps or pitfalls. Mot home owners take out coverage on their Insurance policy to protect themselves from this type of legal trouble. There is an exception to the trespasser rule, if the property owner has reason to believe that children will trespass on their land the owner must take special care to protect the children and prevent injury. There are criminal fines and penalties for trespassing in certain circumstances.

Under Maine law the owner of property has duty to an invitee to exercise due care to have its premises in reasonable safe condition and to give warning of latent or concealed perils. An invitee on property has the right to rely to some extent upon the owner's discharge of the duty owed to invitees that they would not be exposed in their use of the property to an unreasonable risk of harm. An invitee is not bound to anticipate negligent conduct on the part of the owner in the maintenance of the property, but the invitee has the right to assume that the premises are reasonably safe for their use.

Steps should be taken to eliminate dangers to visitors on your property:

• Inadequate Outdoor Lighting can lead to a person being injured on a sidewalk or in a parking lot. The property owner can be held responsible if they knew or should have known about the dangerous situation but failed to fix it. 
• Flooring problems can result in slip-and-fall accidents. A property owner’s oversight for providing adequate signs for wet areas, failure to provide proper barriers, floor waxing in excess among other scenarios can all lead to a slip and fall accident. 
• Store owners are liable for their patrons. People visit a store to primarily benefit the store owner by purchasing products and services. It is the store owner’s duty to keep they premises reasonably safe. For instance, if it has been raining for a several days straight, and the owner makes an effort to keep his floors reasonably dry and free of water, there may not be a way to keep the floors completely devoid of water. However, if it rained several days prior and the floor still has puddles, then the store owner may hold some liability. 

The reasonable foreseeability of injury to others from one's acts or from one's failure to act raises a duty under the law to proceed in the exercise of reasonable care and do what needs to be done to keep people safe. It is not necessary that the precise type of injury be foreseen nor the specific person injured.

It would be wise to walk around your property with a sharp eye just to be sure you are keeping your business or home safe for anyone that might visit it, invited or not.