From: whs70@dancer.uucp (22501-sohl)
Subject: Re: East Bay Regional Parks/dog restrictions
Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 15:40:58 GMT

In article <qid869g@zuni.esd.sgi.com> ddh@earth.esd.sgi.com (Daniel Hachigian) writes:
>mzimmers@netcom.com (Michael Zimmers) writes:
>
>|> An element of judgement must be used here, as someone who left poisoned
>|> candy bars by the sidewalk in their front yard is clearly culpable.
>
>|> But I for one have a very hard time implicating pool owners when 
>|> children trespass and drown.
>
>So are you saying that it's not a black and white issue?  The former case
>above seems to indicate that in especially obvious cases that the neighbor
>should be held culpable.  But then where do you draw the line?  If the
>neighbor had a valid reason for placing the candybars out (eg, to poison
>plague carrying rodents) is he still culpable?  Or is he culpable because
>he failed to make parents aware of the risk?  Would it be good enough to
>have a warning sign out?  Would he still be culpable if the poison was only
>in the back yard?  If not, would he be culpable if there was no gate on the
>back yard?

The line is very clear.  It is (or should be) the line which marks
the boundary of my property.  Neighbor's kids do not belong on my
property....period!  I am constantly amazed at the lack of parenting
in this area.  Each of my 3 kids knows it would be their hide that
pays if they were caught trespassing on someone else's property for
ANY reason.  Why is that so hard for most contemporary parents to
impress on their kids?

>The point is that if you are going to grant that there are some circumstances
>in which the neighbor should be held culpable then you have conceded your
>philosophic point that the property owner should be free to do what they
>wish with their own property.  Instead it simply becomes a question of where
>to draw the line.  You'd draw the line at the front yard whereas the courts
>have drawn the line at the backyard.

I draw the line at my property boundary.  The courts (usually a
sympathetic jury) have extended the attractive nuisance claim to
be almost anywhere, hence the parent's of a drowned child sue
and win damages even though their child (1) trespassed another's
property, (2) often climbed a fence to go swimming and (3) had
absolutely no right to be there at all.  That's sick!

>As soon as that happens, then I think Phil's point about the severity of
>the consequences becomes tenable and apropos.

Let's be honest here.  The bottom line is that the parents of these
kids have failed in their role as parents, BUT that shouldn't make
you and I responsible for the acts of the hulligans they've raised.

As far as I'm concerned, the term attractive nuisance is little
more than the legal (lawyers) way of failing to place responsibility
where it properly belongs (on the individual, child, parent) for
the financial benefit of lawyers and the suing party.

Standard Disclaimer- Any opinions, etc. are mine and NOT my employer's.
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Bill Sohl (K2UNK) BELLCORE (Bell Communications Research, Inc.)
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Newsgroups: ba.general,misc.kids,misc.legal