Case Title: Hoffmann v. Young

Citation: 

Docket Number: S266003

State: california

Court: California Supreme Court

Date: 2022-08-29T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF 
CALIFORNIA 
 
MIKAYLA HOFFMANN, 
Plaintiff and Appellant, 
v. 
CHRISTINA M. YOUNG et al., 
Defendants and Respondents. 
 
S266003 
 
Second Appellate District, Division Six 
B292539 
 
San Luis Obispo County Superior Court 
16CVP0060 
 
 
August 29, 2022 
 
Justice Corrigan authored the opinion of the Court, in which 
Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye and Justices Liu, Jenkins, and 
Guerrero concurred. 
 
Justice Kruger filed a concurring opinion, in which Justices Liu 
and Groban concurred.   
 
 
1 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
S266003 
 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
Under Civil Code section 846, landowners generally owe 
no duty of care to keep their property safe for others who may 
enter or use it for recreational purposes.1  There is an exception 
to that statutory negation of duty, however, when a landowner 
expressly invites someone onto the property.  The question here 
is whether that exception applies when the invitation is 
extended, not by the landowners, but by their live-at-home child 
who acts without the owners’ knowledge or permission.  The 
trial court ruled that the exception did not apply because there 
was no evidence the landowners personally invited the plaintiff 
to come onto their land.  The Court of Appeal reversed, holding 
that an invitation by a landowner’s live-at-home child operates 
to activate the exception unless the child has been prohibited 
from making the invitation.  (Hoffmann v. Young (2020) 56 
Cal.App.5th 1021,1024 (Hoffmann).)  Neither court interpreted 
the statute correctly.  Here, we hold that a plaintiff may rely on 
the exception and impose liability if there is a showing that a 
landowner, or an agent acting on his or her behalf, extended an 
express invitation to come onto the property.  Plaintiff did not 
meet that burden below.  We reverse the Court of Appeal’s 
judgment and remand the matter as explained.   
 
1  
All undesignated statutory references are to the Civil 
Code.   
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
2 
I. 
BACKGROUND 
Defendants Donald and Christina Young lived with their 
sons, Gunner and Dillon,2 on property they owned in Paso 
Robles.  Donald also designed and built a motocross track on the 
land.   
One day in 2014, 18-year-old Gunner invited Mikayla 
Hoffmann (plaintiff) to go motorcycle riding.  The next day, he 
drove plaintiff and her bike to his parents’ property, unloaded 
the motorcycle, and provided her with protective riding gear.3  
He told her to ride on the driveway while he took a “warm-up” 
lap on the track.  Instead, plaintiff entered the track and rode in 
the opposite direction from Gunner.  Their bikes collided, and 
both were injured.4    
Plaintiff sued Donald, Christina, Gunner, Dillon, and a 
business owned by Donald.  She asserted claims for (1) 
negligence, (2) premises liability based on negligent track 
design, and (3) negligent provision of medical care.   
 
2  
To avoid confusion and repetition, we refer to the Youngs 
by their given names.   
3  
There was no dispute that Gunner invited plaintiff onto 
his parents’ property.  The parties disagreed as to whether the 
invitation was to ride on the motocross track.  Plaintiff claimed 
Gunner invited her to ride on the track.  Gunner claimed the 
plan was to retrieve his motorcycle from his parents’ house and 
to ride in a riverbed off his parents’ property.  As explained 
below, plaintiff has not shown a landowner extended an express 
invitation to come onto the property; thus, we need not address 
the scope of any invitation.      
4  
Plaintiff lost tissue from one of her fingers.  Gunner 
suffered a broken pelvis and a knee injury. 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
3 
Donald’s company settled.  The Youngs were all granted 
summary adjudication on the negligence and premises liability 
claims, successfully arguing that those claims were barred by 
the primary assumption of risk doctrine.  After plaintiff 
petitioned for a writ of mandamus, the Court of Appeal issued 
an alternative writ concluding there were triable issues of fact 
that precluded summary adjudication of those claims as to 
Donald and Christina.  The trial court reinstated those causes 
of action against Donald and Christina alone.  The provision of 
medical care claim was allowed to go forward against all 
remaining defendants.    
On the day before trial began, defendants moved to amend 
their answer to add an affirmative defense of recreational use 
immunity under section 846.  That section provides in relevant 
part that a landowner “owes no duty of care to keep the premises 
safe for entry or use by others for any recreational purpose.”5  
(§ 846, subd. (a) (section 846(a)).)  Plaintiff opposed the motion.  
With the parties’ agreement, the court deferred ruling.   
As the trial progressed, however, questions repeatedly 
arose as to whether defendants would be permitted to amend 
their answer and whether the recreational use immunity 
defense was applicable.  On the fourth day of trial, while 
plaintiff was still presenting her case, the court revisited the 
outstanding motion to amend.  In opposition, plaintiff argued 
first that the motion was untimely.  Plaintiff’s counsel asserted 
that “we would have pursued discovery quite a bit differently” if 
plaintiff had known defendants would claim immunity under 
section 846.  Second, plaintiff invoked the express invitee 
 
5  
Section 
846, 
subdivision 
(b) 
defines 
the 
term 
“ ‘recreational purpose.’ ”   
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
4 
exception, which provides that section 846(a) “does not limit the 
liability which otherwise exists for [¶] . . . [¶] [a]ny persons who 
are expressly invited rather than merely permitted to come 
upon the premises by the landowner.”  (§ 846, subd. (d)(3) 
(section 846(d)(3)).)  Plaintiff argued that Gunner’s invitation 
abrogated any immunity under section 846(a).  The trial court 
again deferred ruling. 
On the sixth day of trial, the court and counsel discussed 
the verdict form.  Defendants argued the form should include a 
question regarding recreational use immunity.  Plaintiff 
repeated her arguments that the motion to amend was untimely 
and the defense was inapplicable.  The court again postponed its 
ruling.    
Two days later, after plaintiff had rested, the court 
granted defendants’ motion to amend, concluding the express 
invitee exception of section 846(d)(3) was inapplicable as a 
matter of law.  It reasoned that neither Donald nor Christina 
had expressly invited plaintiff onto the property.  Instead, it was 
Gunner, a nonowner, who had invited her.  Accordingly, in the 
court’s view, the general rule of section 846(a) shielded the 
parents from liability.   
At the close of trial, the following facts were undisputed.  
Donald and Christina had never met or seen plaintiff before the 
accident, and she had never been on the property before.  
Neither parent personally invited plaintiff to enter their land.  
Gunner did not ask his parents’ permission to invite plaintiff to 
enter and did not tell them that he had done so.   
Before jury deliberations, the court entered a directed 
verdict for Christina on the negligence and premises liability 
claims because there was no evidence she had any role in the 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
5 
track’s design or maintenance.  The jury returned a verdict for 
the defense on all claims.  The court did not ask the jury for 
findings on the express invitee exception because it had 
previously concluded that the exception did not apply.6   
Plaintiff moved for a new trial, asserting, inter alia, that 
the trial court erred by:  (1) allowing defendants to amend their 
answer to allege an affirmative defense under section 846(a); 
(2) excluding certain evidence relevant to the application of the 
express invitee exception; and (3) ruling that the express invitee 
exception was inapplicable.  The trial court denied the motion.    
A divided Court of Appeal reversed and remanded for a 
new trial on the two claims related to the immunity defense.7  
The majority held that “where, as here, a child of the landowner 
is living with the landowner on the landowner’s property and 
the landowner has consented to this living arrangement, the 
child’s express invitation of a person to come onto the property 
operates as an express invitation by the landowner within the 
meaning of section 846, subdivision (d)(3), unless the landowner 
has prohibited the child from extending the invitation.”  
(Hoffmann, supra, 56 Cal.App.5th at p. 1024, italics added.)  
Because there was “no evidence that Gunner’s parents 
prohibited him from inviting guests onto the property,” the 
majority concluded that “Gunner’s express invitation of 
[plaintiff] stripped his parents of the immunity that would 
 
6  
Though the jury was not asked for findings on the express 
invitee exception, it was instructed with the full version of CACI 
No. 1010, which included that exception.   
7  
The Court of Appeal affirmed the defense judgment on 
plaintiff’s claim against all defendants for negligent provision of 
medical care.  (Hoffmann, supra, 56 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1024–
1025, 1029.)  Plaintiff does not challenge that ruling.   
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
6 
otherwise have been provided to them by section 846.”  (Id. at p. 
1024.)  The dissent would have affirmed, reasoning that only an 
invitation issued by the landowner or by someone expressly 
authorized by the landowner can give rise to the exception.   
II. 
DISCUSSION 
We are called upon to decide whether an invitation made 
by a nonlandowner, without the landowner’s knowledge or 
express approval, can satisfy the requirements of section 
846(d)(3) and abrogate the landowner’s immunity under section 
846(a).  This is a question of statutory interpretation.  Our task 
is to ascertain the Legislature’s intent and effectuate the 
enactment’s purpose.  When a statute’s words are clear, their 
plain meaning controls and “we may not add to or alter them to 
accomplish a purpose that does not appear on the face of the 
statute or from its legislative history.”  (Burden v. Snowden 
(1992) 2 Cal.4th 556, 562.)  While the words of a statute provide 
the most reliable indication of the Legislature’s intent, we do not 
construe those words in isolation.  Instead, we harmonize the 
enactment’s various parts by considering the provision at issue 
in the context of the whole statutory scheme.  (Kim v. Reins 
International California, Inc. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 73, 83.)   
A. 
Landowner Liability and Recreational Use 
Immunity Under Section 846 
The general rule is that a landowner “owes certain 
affirmative duties of care, as to conditions or activities on the 
land, to persons who come on the land.”  (6 Witkin, Summary of 
Cal. Law (11th ed. 2017) Torts, § 1224, p. 474.)  Section 1714 
provides that every person “is responsible, not only for the result 
of his or her willful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to 
another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
7 
management of his or her property . . . .”  (§ 1714, subd. (a).)  
Under section 1714, landowners owe a duty to exercise ordinary 
care in managing their property in light of the foreseeability of 
injury to others.  (Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 
119 (Rowland).)  The Rowland court observed that section 1714, 
“which has been unchanged in our law since 1872, states a civil 
law and not a common law principle.”  (Rowland, at p. 112.) 
Before our decision in Rowland, the liability of a possessor 
of land for injury to an entrant was generally based on the 
entrant’s status.  (See Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d at p. 113.)  
Entrants were divided into three categories:  invitees; licensees; 
and trespassers.  An “invitee is a business visitor who is invited 
or permitted to enter or remain on the land for a purpose directly 
or indirectly connected with business dealings between them.”8  
(Rowland, at pp. 113–114.)  A “licensee is a person like a social 
guest who is not an invitee and who is privileged to enter or 
remain upon land by virtue of the possessor’s consent.”  (Id. at 
p. 113.)  A “trespasser is a person who enters or remains upon 
land of another without a privilege to do so.”  (Ibid.; see also 
Hamakawa v. Crescent Wharf & Warehouse Co. (1935) 4 Cal.2d 
499, 501 (Hamakawa).)   
The general rule with respect to trespassers and licensees 
was that they took “the premises as they [found] them insofar 
as any alleged defective condition thereon may exist, and that 
the possessor of the land owe[d] them only the duty of refraining 
from wanton or willful injury.”  (Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d at p. 
 
8  
Invitees also included persons invited to enter or remain 
on land as a member of the public for a purpose for which the 
land was held open to the public.  (O’Keefe v. South End Rowing 
Club (1966) 64 Cal.2d 729, 739.)   
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
8 
114.)  Thus, a landowner generally owed no duty to a trespasser 
or licensee to keep the premises in safe condition.9 (Palmquist v. 
Mercer (1954) 43 Cal.2d 92, 102; Hamakawa, supra, 4 Cal.2d at 
pp. 501–502.)  As to business or other invitees, landowners owed 
a duty to exercise ordinary care to render the premises safe and 
to protect the invitee from injury.  (Edwards v. Hollywood 
Canteen (1946) 27 Cal.2d 802, 809; see also Rowland, at p. 114.) 
Over time, various exceptions to these rules developed.  
Confusion arose surrounding the scope of these exceptions, as 
well as the definitions of invitee, licensee, and trespasser.  In 
Rowland, this court replaced the former concept of liability 
based on an entrant’s status with the current application of 
liability based on ordinary principles of negligence under section 
1714.  (See Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d at pp. 115–119.)  The 
Rowland court explained:  “Although it is true that some 
exceptions have been made to the general principle that a 
person is liable for injuries caused by his failure to exercise 
reasonable care in the circumstances, it is clear that in the 
absence of statutory provision declaring an exception to the 
fundamental principle enunciated by section 1714 of the Civil 
Code, no such exception should be made unless clearly 
supported by public policy.”  (Rowland, at p. 112.)   
Section 846, enacted in 1963, creates “an exception in 
favor of landowners as against the liability imposed by section 
 
9  
As to trespassers and licensees whom the landowner knew 
or should have known were on the land, a landowner had a duty 
to warn of artificial conditions constituting concealed dangers 
and to exercise reasonable care in carrying on activities.  (See 
Fernandez v. Consolidated Fisheries, Inc. (1950) 98 Cal.App.2d 
91, 97; Blaylock v. Jensen (1941) 44 Cal.App.2d 850, 852; see 
also Oettinger v. Stewart (1944) 24 Cal.2d 133, 138.)   
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
9 
1714.”  (English v. Marin Mun. Water Dist. (1977) 66 Cal.App.3d 
725, 731 (English).)  Section 846(a) provides:  “An owner of any 
estate or any other interest in real property, whether possessory 
or nonpossessory, owes no duty of care to keep the premises safe 
for entry or use by others for any recreational purpose or to give 
any warning of hazardous conditions, uses of, structures, or 
activities on those premises to persons entering for a 
recreational purpose, except as provided in this section.”  This 
court has explained that section 846(a) “absolves California 
landowners of two separate and distinct duties” that might arise 
under section 1714:  (1) “the duty to ‘keep the premises safe’ for 
recreational users”; and (2) “the duty to warn such users of 
‘hazardous conditions, uses of, structures, or activities’ on the 
premises.”  (Klein v. United States of America (2010) 50 Cal.4th 
68, 78 (Klein).)  Here, we discuss only the first of these duties.  
Plaintiff does not argue in this court that defendants owed her 
a duty to warn.   
The “purpose of section 846 is to encourage property 
owners ‘to allow the general public to recreate free of charge on 
privately owned property.’ ”  (Delta Farms Reclamation Dist. v. 
Superior Court (1983) 33 Cal.3d 699, 707, italics omitted, 
quoting Parish v. Lloyd (1978) 82 Cal.App.3d 785, 787.)  Before 
the statute’s enactment, there had been a “growing tendency” 
among California landowners “to withdraw land from 
recreational access” because of the potential liability they faced 
under section 1714.  (English, supra, 66 Cal.App.3d at p. 731.)  
The Legislature sought to reduce landowners’ potential 
exposure by removing the specter of tort liability to most 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
10 
recreational users of private property.10  The effect of section 846 
was to “ ‘negate the tort,’ ” by eliminating certain duties a 
landowner would otherwise owe to recreational users.  (Klein, 
supra, 50 Cal.4th at p. 78.)  The existence of a duty, of course, is 
an essential element of tortious negligence.  (Ibid.)   
Section 846 immunity is broad, but it is not absolute.  
There are three statutory exceptions to the general rule of 
nonliability.  At issue here is the express invitee exception, 
which is found in section 846(d)(3).  It provides that section 
846(a) “does not limit the liability which otherwise exists for 
[¶] . . . [¶] [a]ny persons who are expressly invited rather than 
merely permitted to come upon the premises by the landowner.”  
(§ 846(d)(3), italics added.)11 
In summary, section 1714 imposes a duty to use ordinary 
skill and care in the management of property in order to prevent 
 
10  
Section 846 was enacted before the issuance of our 
decision in Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d 108, and thus took effect 
when the pre-Rowland status-based liability framework was 
still in place.  Nonetheless, we concluded in Klein, supra, 50 
Cal.4th 68, that “section 846 makes a plaintiff’s common law 
status . . . irrelevant to the question of the defendant 
landowner’s liability.”  (Klein, at p. 87.)   
11  
Section 846, subdivision (d) provides in full that “[t]his 
section does not limit the liability which otherwise exists for any 
of the following: [¶] (1) Willful or malicious failure to guard or 
warn against a dangerous condition, use, structure or activity. 
[¶] (2) Injury suffered in any case where permission to enter for 
the above purpose was granted for a consideration other than 
the consideration, if any, paid to said landowner by the state, or 
where consideration has been received from others for the same 
purpose. [¶] (3) Any persons who are expressly invited rather 
than merely permitted to come upon the premises by the 
landowner.”   
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
11 
foreseeable injury to others.  Section 846(a) eliminates an 
owner’s duty to keep premises safe for entry or use by others for 
recreational purposes.12  However, under section 846(d)(3), if an 
owner expressly invites someone onto the property and the 
person is injured while using the land for a recreational purpose, 
then the general release from liability is abrogated.  The 
question arises whether an express invitation to enter, made by 
someone other than the landowner, can bring section 846(d)(3)’s 
exception into play and abrogate the elimination of liability.  If 
so, who has the burden of proving the exception and how can 
that burden be discharged?  In answering these questions, it is 
useful to review how the trial court and the Court of Appeal 
majority and dissent addressed them. 
B. 
A Nonlandowner Can Extend a Qualifying 
Invitation Under Section 846(d)(3) Under Some 
Circumstances 
Relying on the statutory text alone, the trial court 
concluded that only an invitation personally extended to 
plaintiff by a landowner could give rise to the section 846(d)(3) 
exception.  Because there was no evidence that either Donald or 
 
12  
The concurring opinion questions “whether social guests 
fall within the category of recreational entrants and users to 
which the basic rule of immunity in [section 846(a)] was aimed.”  
(Conc. opn., post, p. 12.)  However, as the opinion recognizes, the 
parties have assumed throughout much of this litigation that 
the immunity provided by section 846(a) “ordinarily applies to 
such persons.”  (Conc. opn., at p. 11; see also id. at p. 12, fn. 7.)  
Thus, we agree with the concurring opinion that “this is not the 
case for us to undertake a more comprehensive look at the 
threshold question whether section 846 . . . has any application 
to the social guests of members of a household.”  (Id. at p. 15.)   
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
12 
Christina had extended such an invitation, the court ruled that 
the express invitee exception was inapplicable.   
The majority and dissent below read the statute more 
broadly.  The majority ruled that the invitation issued by 
Gunner, a nonlandowner, triggered the section 846(d)(3) 
exception.  In doing so, the majority recognized the creation of 
an “implied” agency.  The dissent would have concluded that an 
invitation extended by a nonlandowner can qualify for the 
exception, but only if the landowner “expressly authorize[d]” the 
nonlandowner as an agent to make the invitation.  (Hoffman, 
supra, 56 Cal.App.5th at p. 1031 (dis. opn. of Perren, J.).)   
We conclude that the trial court read the statute too 
narrowly because it failed to consider the context provided by 
other parts of the Civil Code.  We also reject the Court of Appeal 
majority’s “implied” agency analysis.  We agree, however, with 
the dissent’s general conclusion that an invitation by a 
nonlandowner can, under some circumstances, trigger the 
exception.   
To be sure, the plain language of the exception refers only 
to those “expressly invited . . . to come upon the premises by the 
landowner.”  (§ 846(d)(3), italics added.)  The statute mentions 
no person other than the invitee and the landowner.  Read in 
isolation, this language could be construed to cover only those 
situations in which a landowner had personally and expressly 
extended an invitation to the person seeking to rely on the 
exception.  However, we do “not construe statutory language in 
isolation.”  (Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control v. 
Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Bd. (2006) 40 Cal.4th 1, 11.)  
Rather, we construe it “as a thread in the fabric of the entire 
statutory scheme of which it is a part.”  (Ibid.)  Section 846 is 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
13 
part of the same statutory scheme as the California statutes 
governing agency relationships (Civ. Code, § 2295 et seq.).  
Construing the provisions together, we conclude that agency 
principles apply to the interpretation of section 846. 
An agent “is one who represents another, called the 
principal, in dealings with third persons.  Such representation 
is called agency.”  (§ 2295.)  An agent “may be authorized to do 
any acts which his principal might do, except those to which the 
latter is bound to give his personal attention.”  (§ 2304.)  
Moreover, “[e]very act which, according to [the Civil Code], may 
be done by or to any person, may be done by or to the agent of 
such person for that purpose, unless a contrary intention clearly 
appears.”  (§ 2305.)  Nothing in section 846(d)(3) suggests an 
intent to preclude an agent from extending an invitation on 
behalf of a landowner.  Reading section 846(d)(3) in conjunction 
with section 2305, there is clear statutory support for the 
conclusion that an invitation communicated by the landowner’s 
properly authorized agent can activate the section 846(d)(3) 
exception.  “ ‘The heart of agency is expressed in the ancient 
maxim:  “Qui facit per alium facit per se.”  [He who acts through 
another acts by or for himself.]’ ”  (Channel Lumber Co. v. Porter 
Simon (2000) 78 Cal.App.4th 1222, 1227 (Channel Lumber), 
quoting Wallace v. Sinclair (1952) 114 Cal.App.2d 220, 229.)   
Were we to interpret section 846(d)(3) as only applying to 
those who receive an express invitation from a landowner 
personally, an owner could avoid the exception by the expedient 
of authorizing a third party to invite a person onto his property 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
14 
in order to retain immunity under section 846(a).  There is no 
indication the Legislature intended to create such a loophole.13   
C. 
Establishing Facts Sufficient To Trigger the 
Section 846(d)(3) Exception 
As noted, the general rule of section 846(a) provides 
immunity to the landowner.  Section 846(d)(3) sets out an 
exception.  A plaintiff seeking to rely on an exception to a 
general statutory rule bears the burden of establishing the 
exception applies.  (Barnes v. Chamberlain (1983) 147 
Cal.App.3d 762, 767; see also Simpson Strong-Tie Co., Inc., v. 
Gore (2010) 49 Cal.4th 12, 23.)  We conclude that one way for a 
plaintiff invoking section 846(d)(3) to meet that burden would 
be to rely on agency principles, and we clarify how those 
principles might apply in this context.  In doing so, we take a 
different approach from that adopted by the Court of Appeal 
majority.   
Section 846, with its negation of duty, stands side by side 
with the established principles of section 1714 and Rowland, 
supra, 69 Cal.2d 108.  Because section 846 and its exceptions 
predated Rowland, some integration of the two approaches is 
needed.  We harmonize these threads of the law by adopting an 
approach tailored to the particular framework of section 846.  As 
 
13  
Some appellate opinions have suggested or held that a 
“direct, personal request” from the landowner to the injured 
entrant is required to bring section 846(d)(3) into play.  (Johnson 
v. Unocal Corp. (1993) 21 Cal.App.4th 310, 317; see also Jackson 
v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (2001) 94 Cal.App.4th 1110, 1116; 
Wang v. Nibbelink (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 1, 32.)  We disapprove 
of those decisions to the extent they held that a qualifying 
invitation under section 846(d)(3) may only be extended by the 
landowner personally.   
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
15 
to the claimed exception here, the Legislature expressly referred 
to an invitation “by the landowner” for the exception to apply.  
We import an agency analysis to determine under what 
circumstances landowners can authorize a nonlandowner to 
invite others onto their property with the consequence that they 
lose the immunity conferred by section 846(a).  Under section 
2305, any act that may be done by a person according to the Civil 
Code may be done by someone the person has made their agent 
for that purpose.  Thus, when a landowner has properly 
authorized an agent to extend, on his or her behalf, an invitation 
to enter the land that invitation gives rise to the exception.   
Importing an agency-derived analysis here ensures a more 
formal approach to section 846(d)(3)’s exception than reliance on 
a newly-created “implied agency” approach taken by the 
majority below.  It is particularly appropriate to require a degree 
of specificity in a landowner’s intentional delegation because an 
invitation by a properly authorized agent can function to strip a 
landowner of the immunity the Legislature took care to confer.  
Nothing we say here, in applying agency principles to section 
846(d)(3), should be understood to undermine or run counter to 
long-settled broad principles relating to the law of agency.   
Plaintiff agrees that agency principles can guide the 
determination 
whether 
an 
invitation 
extended 
by 
a 
nonlandowner qualifies for the express invitee exception.  
Alternatively, she suggests that section 846(d)(3) itself can be 
understood to encompass an invitation by a nonlandowner.  Her 
reasoning depends on an overly broad reading of the term 
“landowner.”  She points out that other jurisdictions have 
expressly, and more expansively, defined the term “owner” in 
their recreational use immunity statutes to include others who 
occupy or control property.  (See, e.g., Haw. Rev. Stat., § 520-2; 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
16 
Wis. Stat., § 895.52(1)(d)(1); Neb. Rev. Stat., § 37-729(2); Ind. 
Code. § 14-22-10-2(c)(2); Or. Rev. Stat, § 105.672(4)(a); see also 
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code. Ann., § 75.002(a)–(c).)14  Plaintiff 
asserts these statutes share a “similarity of purpose” with 
section 846 and urges us to construe the term “landowner” in 
section 846(d)(3) to cover both property owners and other 
occupants.  But a comparison of the language of these other 
statutes with that of section 846 undermines her argument.  Our 
sister states have explicitly defined the term “owner” to include 
owners, occupants, or controllers of the land.  If the term 
“owner” (or “landowner”) naturally included other occupants of 
property, the explicit inclusion of others in those statutory 
definitions would not have been necessary.  Section 846(d)(3), by 
comparison, uses only the term “landowner,” without further 
elaboration.  The most natural reading of this term is that it 
does not inferentially include others, like occupants. 
Plaintiff also relies on language in section 846.2 to support 
her broad construction of “landowner.”  That statute provides 
general immunity for an “owner, tenant, or lessee of land or 
premises” against injuries to one “who has been expressly 
invited on that land or premises to glean agricultural or farm 
products for charitable purposes.”  (§ 846.2.)  She asserts a more 
“inclusive” definition of “landowner” should be applied to section 
 
14  
For example, Hawaii’s recreational use immunity statute 
defines “owner” as “the possessor of a fee interest, a tenant, 
lessee, occupant, or person in control of the premises.”  (Haw. 
Rev. Stat, § 520-2.)  In Nebraska’s similar statute, the term 
“[o]wner includes tenant, lessee, occupant, or person in control 
of the premises.”  (Neb. Rev. Stat., § 37-729(2).)  Under 
Wisconsin’s statute, “owner” means “[a] person, including a 
governmental body or nonprofit organization, that owns, leases 
or occupies property.”  (Wis. Stat., § 895.52(1)(d)1.)   
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
17 
846 because the two statutes relate to the same topic and have 
a similar purpose.  But the two statutes use different terms.  
Section 846(d)(3) refers only to a “landowner,” while section 
846.2 uses the phrase “owner, tenant, or lessee.”  Rather than 
suggesting the Legislature intended “landowner” to be more 
“inclusive,” section 846.2’s use of additional terms suggests the 
Legislature intended the two statutes to cover different groups 
of people.  (See Rashidi v. Moser (2014) 60 Cal.4th 718, 725.)  
D. 
The Analysis and Holding of the Court of 
Appeal Majority Were Flawed 
We reject the analysis of the Court of Appeal majority.  
The majority concluded that an invitation by a landowner’s child 
“operates as an express invitation by the landowner” if:  (1) the 
child “is living with the landowner on the landowner’s property”; 
(2) the landowner “has consented to this living arrangement”; 
and (3) the landowner has not “prohibited the child from 
extending the invitation.”  (Hoffmann, supra, 56 Cal.App.5th at 
p. 1024.)   
The majority reasoned that, when parents allow a child to 
live on their property, they “impliedly permit [the child] to invite 
friends to the property.”  (Hoffmann, supra, 56 Cal.App.5th at 
p. 1026.)  Thus, it concluded that, “[a]bsent very unusual 
circumstances, such as an express order not to bring a friend to 
the property, it is reasonable to say that, so long as they are 
living together, a child may invite a guest onto the parents’ 
property.”  (Ibid.)  The majority also reasoned that section 846 
“does not preclude a landowner from delegating authority to a 
child to invite guests onto the property for social purposes.”  
(Hoffmann, at p. 1026.)  Such a delegation, according to the 
majority, “creates an agency relationship.”  (Ibid., citing 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
18 
Channel Lumber, supra, 78 Cal.App.4th at p. 1227.)  Here, the 
majority found that the “existence of such a delegation” could be 
“implied.”  (Hoffmann, at p. 1026.)  Thus, they ruled that, 
“[b]ecause Gunner was acting as his parents’ agent when he 
expressly invited [plaintiff] onto the property, the invitation is 
deemed to have been expressly extended by his parents.”  (Ibid.)  
Though we agree that landowners can authorize 
nonowners to expressly invite others onto their property, we 
reject the proposition that a landowner necessarily does so by 
allowing a child to live on the property and failing to prohibit 
the child from extending the invitation.  The question presented 
here is not whether a child can invite friends over.  The legal 
question is whether the circumstances establish that a parent 
has authorized the child to issue an invitation on the parent’s 
behalf, such that the child’s invitation strips the landowner of 
immunity.  The majority’s reasoning has several flaws.   
First, the majority cites Channel Lumber, supra, 78 
Cal.App.4th 1222, as supporting its conclusion that “delegating 
authority to a child to invite guests onto the property for social 
purposes . . . creates an agency relationship.”  (Hoffmann, supra, 
56 Cal.App.5th at p. 1026.)  The majority’s citation is inapt.  
Channel Lumber says nothing about whether a parent’s 
delegation of that authority to a child creates an agency 
relationship.  Instead, it involved a malpractice suit by a 
corporation against an outside law firm the corporation had 
previously hired to represent it in a commercial case.  The firm 
prevailed against the malpractice allegations, and the court 
awarded fees and costs under Corporations Code section 317.  
That section permits, and sometimes requires, a corporation to 
reimburse legal fees and costs incurred “by reason of the fact 
that the person is or was an agent of the corporation.” (Corp. 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
19 
Code, § 317, subd. (b).)  Channel Lumber recognized that an 
attorney retained by a corporation has the attributes of both an 
independent contractor and agent.  (Channel Lumber, at p. 
1227.)  However, agency principles demonstrated that an 
outside attorney retained by a corporation to represent it at trial 
was not an agent of the corporation, but instead was “an 
independent contractor of his or her corporate client.”  (Id. at p. 
1229.)  The case had nothing to do with an “implied” delegation 
of authority for purposes of section 846, under the circumstances 
the Court of Appeal majority recognized, nor does it stand for 
the proposition attributed to it. 
Second, the factors listed in support of the finding of an 
agency relationship between Gunner and his parents are 
insufficient to create such a relationship.  “Agency exists when 
a principal engages an agent to act on the principal’s behalf and 
subject to its control.”  (Church Mutual Ins. Co., S.I. v. GuideOne 
Specialty Mutual Ins. Co. (2021) 72 Cal.App.5th 1042, 1061.)  
The “essential elements necessary to establish an agency 
relationship are ‘ “ ‘manifestation of consent by one person to 
another that the other shall act on his [or her] behalf and subject 
to his [or her] control, and consent by the other so to act.’ ” ’ ”  
(Id. at pp. 1061–1062, quoting van’t Rood v. County of Santa 
Clara (2003) 113 Cal.App.4th 549, 571 (van’t Rood).)  “ ‘ “The 
principal must in some manner indicate that the agent is to act 
for him, and the agent must act or agree to act on his behalf and 
subject to his control.” ’ ”  (van’t Rood, at p. 571, quoting 
Edwards v. Freeman (1949) 34 Cal.2d 589, 592, italics added.)  
Typically, an agency is created by an express contract or 
authorization.  (§ 2307.)  However, an agency relationship may 
also be created informally, based on the circumstances and the 
parties’ conduct.  (Brand v. Mantor (1935) 6 Cal.App.2d 126, 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
20 
130.)  “No particular words are necessary, nor need there be 
consideration.  All that is required is conduct by each party 
manifesting acceptance of a relationship whereby one of them is 
to perform work for the other under the latter’s direction.”  
(Malloy v. Fong (1951) 37 Cal.2d 356, 372, italics added.)  That 
said, “an agency cannot be created by the conduct of the agent 
alone; rather, conduct by the principal is essential to create the 
agency.”  (Flores v. Evergreen at San Diego, LLC (2007) 148 
Cal.App.4th 581, 587–588.)   
The majority’s conclusion that Gunner was acting as his 
parents’ agent for purposes of section 846(d)(3) was based on 
three factors:  (1) that he was living on his parents’ property; (2) 
that his parents had consented to the living arrangement; and 
(3) that there was no evidence his parents had prohibited him 
from making the invitation.  Preliminarily, the mere existence 
of a parent-child relationship does not create an agency.  (See 
Angus v. London (1949) 92 Cal.App.2d 282, 285 [“The 
relationship of father and child, standing alone, does not prove 
the agency of either”]; see also Van Den Eikhof v. Hocker (1978) 
87 Cal.App.3d 900, 904.)  There is no reason to think that simply 
allowing a child to live at home changes this conclusion.  
Further, Donald and Christina’s failure to prohibit Gunner from 
extending the invitation does not strike us as conduct implying 
that Gunner was authorized to act on their behalf in extending 
an invitation, in such a manner that extinguished their 
immunity.   
Common social convention would indicate that parents 
often permit a child, even a minor of a certain age, to invite 
social guests onto the family property.  However, that 
convention standing alone would be insufficient to create an 
agency relationship.  As the case law makes clear, to constitute 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
21 
an agency relationship the authority delegated must be that 
“which permits the agent to act ‘not only for, but in the place of, 
his principal’ in dealings with third parties.”  (Channel Lumber, 
supra, 78 Cal.App.4th at p. 1227, quoting People v. Treadwell 
(1886) 69 Cal. 226, 236.)  As applied to the context of section 
846(d)(3), that would mean that an agency relationship can only 
be created if a landowner delegated the authority to a 
nonlandowner to invite guests on the landowner’s behalf.  Mere 
implied permission to invite friends over would not suffice to 
trigger section 846(d)(3)’s exception.  While a child may be 
allowed to invite friends of their choosing, without more, the 
invitation is theirs alone.  Further, under the facts in this 
record, Gunner cannot be said to have acted on his 
parents’ “ ‘ “behalf and subject to [their] control.” ’ ”  (van’t Rood, 
supra, 113 Cal.App.4th at p. 571.)  His parents did not know 
plaintiff, nor were they aware of the invitation.  The evidence 
adduced at trial points to Gunner acting on his own behalf and 
not under the control of his parents.   
Third, the majority’s holding is inconsistent with the 
statutory language.  Section 846(d)(3) distinguishes those 
“expressly invited” from those who are “merely permitted” to 
come upon the premises.  By excluding from the exception those 
who are “merely permitted” to come upon the premises by the 
landowner, the statute makes clear a landowner must do 
something more than simply tolerate a person’s presence on the 
property for the exception to apply.15  By allowing a child to 
 
15  
Section 846, subdivision (c), establishes that a landowner 
“who gives permission to another for entry or use for [any 
recreational] purpose upon the premises does not thereby do any 
 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
22 
invite friends over for social purposes a parent permits those 
friends to enter their land.  But it goes too far to suggest that 
they, as property owners, expressly extend such an invitation to 
thus divest themselves of immunity.   
Fourth, the majority’s holding would place the burden of 
proving the exception’s application on the wrong party.  As noted 
above (see ante, p. 15), the general rule of section 846(a) relieves 
a landowner of any duty to keep his or her premises safe for 
recreational users.  Section 846(d)(3) creates an exception to the 
rule of section 846(a) for those persons who are expressly invited 
to come upon the premises by the landowner.  Plaintiff seeks the 
shelter of this exception.  Accordingly, she should bear the 
burden of persuasion on the point.  The majority improperly 
placed the burden on defendants to show they had prohibited 
Gunner from extending an invitation in order to retain their 
immunity.  (Hoffmann, supra, 56 Cal.App.5th at p. 1024.)   
Finally, the majority’s reliance on Calhoon, supra, 81 
Cal.App.4th 108 was misplaced.  There, the plaintiff was injured 
while skateboarding in his friend’s driveway.  He sued his 
friend’s parents for premises liability.  (Id. at pp. 110–111.)  
Opposing summary judgment, the plaintiff produced evidence 
he was “personally invited” onto the property by the defendants’ 
son.  (Id. at p. 113.)  The trial court ruled the plaintiff’s claims 
were barred by section 846(a).  (Calhoon, at p. 113.)  The 
 
of the following:  [¶] (1) Extend any assurance that the premises 
are safe for that purpose.  [¶] (2) Constitute the person to whom 
permission has been granted the legal status of an invitee or 
licensee to whom a duty of care is owed.  [¶] (3) Assume 
responsibility for or incur liability for any injury to person or 
property caused by any act of the person to whom permission 
has been granted except as provided in this section.” 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
23 
plaintiff appealed, relying on the express invitee exception.  The 
defendants countered that they “did not specifically invite [the 
plaintiff] onto their property for the purpose of skateboarding.”  
(Id. at p. 114.)  The defendants did not dispute the plaintiff was 
invited, but simply argued the invitation was not for a 
recreational purpose.  The court found the express invitee 
exception applied, reasoning the statute “does not say a person 
must be invited for a recreational purpose.”  (Ibid.)  In light of 
the failure of the Calhoon defendants to dispute that the 
invitation as issued was sufficient, the court had no occasion to 
delve more deeply into that question.   
In the end, the majority’s holding contains no limiting 
principle.  The majority reasoned that Donald and Christina 
impliedly delegated invitational authority to Gunner “by 
allowing him to live on the property.”  (Hoffmann, supra, 56 
Cal.App.5th at p. 1026.)  But that rationale could arguably apply 
to anyone allowed to live on the Youngs’ property, whether 
related to the Youngs or not.  There is no indication the 
Legislature intended such an expansive construction of section 
846(d)(3).  If the Legislature wishes to limit the scope of the 
immunity it confers, or to add to the list of those who may make 
a qualifying invitation, it may do so.  As the Supreme Court has 
observed, however, “it’s the job of Congress by legislation, not 
this Court by supposition, both to write the laws and to repeal 
them.”  (Epic Sys. Corp. v. Lewis (2018) ___U.S.___ [138 S.Ct. 
1612, 1624, 200 L.Ed.2d 889, 902.)   
E. 
Remand Is Warranted 
To recap, the trial court read section 846(d)(3) too 
narrowly, in ruling that the exception could not apply because 
neither Donald nor Christina personally invited plaintiff onto 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
24 
their property.  The majority below read section 846(d)(3) too 
broadly, holding that any invitation by a landowner’s live-at-
home child impliedly operates as an express invitation by the 
landowner unless the child has been prohibited from extending 
the invitation.  We hold that a qualifying invitation under 
section 846(d)(3) may be made by a landowner’s authorized 
agent who issued the invitation on the landowner’s behalf.  
Here, the record does not show that Gunner was so authorized; 
therefore, we reverse the Court of Appeal’s judgment.16   
Plaintiff here did not make the required showing, but that 
fact does not end the matter.  The trial court’s ruling on 
defendants’ motion to amend was based on its conclusion that 
the express invitee exception did not apply as a matter of law.  
In her new trial motion, plaintiff argued both that the express 
invitee exception did apply and that the trial court erred in 
allowing defendants to amend their answer to allege an 
affirmative defense under section 846(a) in the first place.  When 
questioned about the possibility of a remand at oral argument, 
defendants’ counsel claimed that the Court of Appeal already 
held that plaintiff’s “new trial argument [was] forfeited.”   
That assertion misreads the Court of Appeal’s opinion.  
The Court of Appeal’s forfeiture finding went only to plaintiff’s 
cause of action for negligent provision of medical care.  
(Hoffmann, supra, 56 Cal.App.5th at p. 1028.)  The court did not 
 
16  
As emphasized by the concurring opinion, we do not 
foreclose other ways that a plaintiff might “make the showing 
that a nonlandowner’s invitation operates as an invitation by 
the landowner.”  (Conc. opn., post, p. 16.)  Rather, we “conclude 
that one way for a plaintiff invoking section 846(d)(3) to meet 
[the burden of showing the exception applies] would be to rely 
on agency principles.”  (See ante, p. 15, italics added.)   
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J. 
 
25 
address plaintiff’s argument that the trial court erred by 
denying her new trial motion as to her other causes of action.   
Other arguments supporting and opposing remand were 
raised before, but not addressed by, the Court of Appeal in light 
of its holding which we now reverse.  Plaintiff’s argument that 
the trial court erred by denying her motion for a new trial on the 
negligence and premises liability claims remains outstanding.  
We remand the matter to the Court of Appeal for it to address 
those arguments in the first instance.   
III. DISPOSITION 
The Court of Appeal’s judgment is reversed.  The matter 
is remanded to the Court of Appeal for it to address plaintiff’s 
claim that the trial court erred by denying her motion for a new 
trial and for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.   
 
CORRIGAN, J.  
 
 
We Concur: 
CANTIL-SAKAUYE, C. J. 
LIU, J. 
JENKINS, J. 
GUERRERO, J. 
 
1 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
S266003 
 
Concurring Opinion by Justice Kruger 
 
More than half a century ago, the Legislature enacted 
Civil Code section 846 (section 846) to immunize property 
owners from liability for injuries suffered by individuals who use 
or enter their property for fishing, hiking, or various other 
recreational purposes.  The purpose of the law was “to encourage 
property owners ‘to allow the general public to recreate free of 
charge on privately owned property’ ” without facing lawsuits 
for their trouble.  (Delta Farms Reclamation Dist. v. Superior 
Court (1983) 33 Cal.3d 699, 707, italics omitted.) 
Today this court considers how that same law applies 
when the injured party is not a member of the general public, 
but a household guest — a friend asked to come over by the child 
of the property owners.   Given the way the parties have litigated 
the case, I agree with the majority’s decision to remand for 
further consideration.   
I write separately for two main reasons.  First, the parties’ 
focus on how section 846 immunity applies in this situation 
skips over the question whether the statute applies at all.  As 
the majority correctly recognizes, that critical threshold 
question remains open (maj. opn., ante, at p. 12, fn. 12); I write 
to explain why the question is, in my view, a substantial one. 
Second, even assuming section 846 immunity applies unless the 
injured guest falls within the exception for persons “expressly 
invited . . . by the landowner” (§ 846, subd. (d)(3)), the majority’s 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
2 
holding on this point is limited.  The majority concludes that, as 
the parties themselves have suggested, “one way” for the guest 
to overcome section 846 immunity would be to prove that the 
child acted as his parents’ agent for purposes of issuing the 
invitation.  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 15.)  But the majority does not 
hold this is the only possible way for an injured guest to 
overcome section 846 immunity; it leaves other possibilities 
open for exploration.  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 25, fn. 16.)  I write 
to suggest a possible alternative path, more fitting for this 
context, that can be considered in an appropriate case. 
In the end, the narrow questions that have been litigated 
and decided so far in this proceeding are insufficient to resolve 
the broader issue at stake:  whether the recreational use 
immunity law bars compensation for household guests who are 
injured because of a property owner’s carelessness.  Any firm 
conclusions on this subject will have to await further litigation.  
In the meantime, however, the Legislature may wish to cut to 
the chase by amending section 846 to more clearly specify the 
limits of the immunity it confers. 
I. 
Under modern tort law, the general rule is that 
“ ‘[e]veryone is responsible . . . for an injury occasioned to 
another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the 
management of his or her property or person,’ ” unless a 
statutory exception applies or a court recognizes an exception 
based on relevant policy considerations.  (Cabral v. Ralphs 
Grocery Co. (2011) 51 Cal.4th 764, 771, citing Rowland v. 
Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108 (Rowland).) 
Section 846 is one such statutory exception.  First enacted 
in 1963, subdivision (a) of the statute reads in its current form:  
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
3 
“An owner of any estate or any other interest in real property, 
whether possessory or nonpossessory, owes no duty of care to 
keep the premises safe for entry or use by others for any 
recreational purpose or to give any warning of hazardous 
conditions, uses of, structures, or activities on those premises to 
persons entering for a recreational purpose, except as provided 
in this section.”  (§ 846, subd. (a).)  This provision sets out a 
general no-duty rule — effectively, an immunity from tort 
claims — for “ ‘owner[s]’ ” of “ ‘any’ ” interest in real property 
facing a premises liability claim from someone who used or 
entered that property “ ‘for any recreational purpose.’ ”  (Klein 
v. United States of America (2010) 50 Cal.4th 68, 77; see id. at 
p. 78.) 
There are, however, a handful of exceptions to the 
statutory no-duty rule.  “Broadly speaking,” these exceptions 
“relate to (a) victims of wilful or malicious conduct by the owner, 
(b) persons who have paid consideration for permission to enter, 
and (c) express invitees.”  (Delta Farms Reclamation Dist. v. 
Superior Court, supra, 33 Cal.3d at p. 708 (Delta Farms); § 846, 
subd. (d).)   
As they argued the case below, both sides assumed 
plaintiff Mikayla Hoffmann counts as a recreational user or 
entrant to whom the general rule of immunity in subdivision (a) 
applies.  They therefore focused their attention on whether she 
falls within the only potentially applicable exception to 
recreational use immunity:  the exception for persons “expressly 
invited . . . by the landowner” set out in section 846, subdivision 
(d)(3).  Both sides further assumed that the phrase “expressly 
invited” bears the meaning a casual reader would ascribe to that 
phrase in 2022:  a direct, person-to-person invitation to a social 
guest, as to a birthday celebration or dinner party. Their 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
4 
dispute, to date, has primarily revolved around whether Gunner 
Young’s invitation to Mikayla can be ascribed to his parents — 
the landowners — for purposes of the subdivision (d)(3) 
exception. 
This series of assumptions is understandable, given the 
way we ordinarily use the relevant statutory terms in everyday 
speech.  But the issues are more complicated than the parties 
here have assumed.  Section 846 was written to adjust the rules 
of landowner recreational liability at a time when those rules — 
and the terminology used to describe them — were very 
different than they are today, and the statute’s terms may bear 
meanings that are neither obvious nor intuitive to a modern 
reader.  To definitively decide how, and whether, section 846 
applies in this situation would require exploring a number of 
additional, threshold questions about the proper interpretation 
of section 846 in its historical context.  I start by describing that 
context and those threshold interpretive questions, as I see 
them, before turning to the separate, follow-on questions framed 
by the parties’ litigation in this particular case. 
A. 
Although section 846 constitutes an exception to the 
modern rule imposing a general duty of reasonable care, section 
846 antedates the rule by several years.  At the time the 
Legislature wrote section 846 in 1963, California courts still 
employed a common law status-based framework that divided 
visitors to land into three categories — trespassers, licensees, 
and invitees — with different tort duties owed to each.  Some 
five years later, in our seminal 1968 decision in Rowland, we 
would discard that framework in favor of the modern approach 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
5 
we apply today.  But before discarding that framework, 
Rowland helpfully summarized it as follows:  
“Generally speaking a trespasser is a person who enters or 
remains upon land of another without a privilege to do so; a 
licensee is a person like a social guest who is not an invitee and 
who is privileged to enter or remain upon land by virtue of the 
possessor’s consent, and an invitee is a business visitor who is 
invited or permitted to enter or remain on the land for a purpose 
directly or indirectly connected with business dealings between 
them.  [Citation.]  [¶]  Although the invitor owes the invitee a 
duty to exercise ordinary care to avoid injuring him [citations], 
the general rule is that a trespasser and licensee or social guest 
are obliged to take the premises as they find them insofar as any 
alleged defective condition thereon may exist, and that the 
possessor of the land owes them only the duty of refraining from 
wanton or willful injury.”  (Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d at 
pp. 113–114, italics added.)  
In other words, landowners owed a duty of reasonable care 
only to “invitee[s],” which we described in Rowland as meaning 
“business visitor[s].”  (Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d at pp. 113–
114.)  Licensees, by contrast — including social guests — were 
owed only a duty to refrain from “wanton or willful injury.”  (Id. 
at p. 114.)  The general idea was that invitees whose entrance 
benefited the landowner in some way — patrons at a grocery 
store, for example — could reasonably expect that the 
landowner would take precautions to protect them from 
dangerous conditions of the premises.  But not so for social 
guests.  The Second Restatement described the usual 
explanation for the rule:  “[T]he guest is expected to take the 
premises as the possessor himself uses them, and does not 
expect and is not entitled to expect that they will be prepared 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
6 
for his reception, or that precautions will be taken for his safety” 
that the possessor himself does not take for his own safety or the 
safety of his family.  (Rest.2d Torts, § 330, com. h, subd. (3), 
p. 175 (Second Restatement).)1 
Although we didn’t specifically mention it in Rowland, 
over time courts had expanded the category of invitees beyond 
business visitors to include certain other members of the public, 
sometimes termed “public invitees.”  (See, e.g., O’Keefe v. South 
End Rowing Club (1966) 64 Cal.2d 729, 737 (O’Keefe).)  We 
would explicitly adopt this understanding of the term “invitee” 
in O’Keefe, quoting the Second Restatement’s definition with 
approval: 
“ ‘Invitee Defined.  (1)  An invitee is either a public invitee 
or a business visitor.  (2)  A public invitee is a person who is 
invited to enter or remain on land as a member of the public for 
a purpose for which the land is held open to the public. . . .’ . . .  
‘It is not enough, to hold land open to the public, that the public 
at large, or any considerable number of persons, are permitted 
to enter at will upon the land for their own purposes.  As in other 
instances of invitation, there must be some inducement or 
encouragement to enter, some conduct indicating that the 
premises are provided and intended for public entry and use, 
 
1 
On this point see also Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d at 
page 114:  “the guest should not expect special precautions to be 
made on his account” and “if the host does not inspect and 
maintain his property the guest should not expect this to be done 
on his account.”  As we noted in Rowland, courts invented 
various exceptions to mitigate the harshness of these rules, 
including liability for “active negligence” in the treatment of 
licensees.  (Id. at p. 115; see id. at pp. 114–116.)  Those 
exceptions are not directly relevant here. 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
7 
and that the public will not merely be tolerated, but is expected 
and desired to come.’ ”  (O’Keefe, supra, 64 Cal.2d at pp. 737–
738.)  
Case law offered illustrations of the duties owed to public 
invitees.  For instance, in Smith v. U.S. (N.D.Cal. 1953) 117 
F.Supp. 525 (Smith) — a case we cited with approval in 
O’Keefe — the court found a landowner (there, the federal 
government) was responsible for injuries suffered by a camper 
when a tree limb fell on him in a designated campsite in a 
national forest.  The landowner was responsible, the court 
explained, because “[u]nder the law of California the plaintiff 
was an invitee.”  (Smith, at p. 526.)  There was, the court 
reasoned, a public invitation to use the campsite because “[a] 
booklet issued by the Forest Service of the Department of 
Agriculture says ‘Public Use of National Forests is Invited’ ” and 
because “the uses to which the campsites were put by the 
plaintiff were in accord with their design and purpose.”  (Id. at 
p. 527.)  As to this latter point, the court explained that 
“California follows the rule that a person on the land of another 
is an invitee if the owner or occupant held out an invitation or 
allurement which led the visitor to believe that the use made by 
him of the premises was in accordance with intention and 
design.”  (Ibid., citing Barker v. Southern Pacific Co. (1931) 118 
Cal.App. 748, 751.) 
As this passage suggests, at common law an invitation to 
enter or remain on land could be either “express” or “implied.”  
(See e.g., Neil v. Feather River Lumber Co. (1928) 203 Cal. 502, 
503 [deciding whether the plaintiff was an “express or implied 
invitee of defendant”]; Hall v. Southern Cal. Edison Co., Ltd. 
(1934) 137 Cal.App. 449, 453 [“expressly invited”]; Stewart v. 
Lido Cafe (1936) 13 Cal.App.2d 46, 50 [“expressly invited”]; 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
8 
Gastine v. Ewing (1944) 65 Cal.App.2d 131, 141 [“expressly is 
invited”]; Street v. Glorence Bldg. Co. (1959) 176 Cal.App.2d 191, 
196 [“expressly invited”]; Farrier v. Levin (1959) 176 Cal.App.2d 
791, 797–798 [“expressly invited” vs. “impliedly invited” (italics 
omitted)]; Speece v. Browne (1964) 229 Cal.App.2d 487, 494 
[“expressly invited”].)  An “express” invitation was essentially 
what it sounds like:  an explicit solicitation of entry.  But the 
invitation did not need to be individually or personally extended, 
so long as it was for a qualifying purpose; express invitations 
could be (and often were) issued to the public at large, via an 
advertisement, sign, or other public encouragement to enter.  
(See Borgnis v. California-Oregon P. Co. (1927) 84 Cal.App. 465, 
468 [“All are invitees who are expressly invited, regardless of any 
question of benefit or advantage to the inviter, even though the 
invitation be not individual, but to the public generally” (italics 
added)].)  An “implied” invitation, by contrast, could be extended 
by acts of the landowner, or features of the property, that a 
reasonable person would understand as indicating an 
encouragement to enter for an invitee-qualifying purpose.  
(Stewart, at pp. 50–51; see, e.g., Smith, supra, 117 F.Supp. at 
p. 527 [finding an implied invitation to use campsite areas in the 
arrangement of the campsites, maintenance of roads leading to 
the sites, and other indicia of openness to the public].)  Whether 
express or implied, an invitation to enter the land served to 
distinguish invitees from persons merely “permitted to enter at 
will upon the land for their own purposes,” to whom no duty of 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
9 
care was ordinarily owed.  (Second Restatement, supra, § 332, 
com. d, p. 178.)2 
It was against this backdrop that the Legislature enacted 
section 846 in 1963.  The general rule of section 846, subdivision 
(a) provided that no duty was owed to persons entering or using 
the property for certain recreational purposes.3  But together 
with the exceptions, the overall effect of the immunity, as it 
would have interacted with the common law rules in place at the 
time, was less than sweeping.  “Willful or malicious failure to 
guard or warn” any user or entrant (§ 846, subd. (d)(1)) would 
continue to subject a landowner to liability, just as at common 
law.  (See Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d at p. 114 [landowner 
generally owed all persons, including trespassers and licensees, 
a “duty of refraining from wanton or willful injury”].)  Section 
846, subdivision (d)(2) specified that nothing in the immunity 
statute affected the duties owed to business invitees who had 
paid to enter for a recreational purpose.  And the same was true 
of other invitees — including, presumably, public invitees — 
under subdivision (d)(3), so long as the invitation was “express[]” 
 
2 
The Restatement offered an illustration of this distinction:  
“When a landowner tacitly permits the boys of the town to play 
ball on his vacant lot they are licensees only; but if he installs 
playground equipment and posts a sign saying that the lot is 
open free to all children, there is then a public invitation, and 
those who enter in response to it are invitees.”  (Second 
Restatement, supra, § 332, com. d, p. 179.) 
3   
As drafted in 1963, the statute was originally written 
without numbered, lettered subdivisions.  (See Sen. Bill No. 639 
(1962–1963 Reg. Sess.) as amended June 21, 1963, § 1.)  Section 
846 was later reorganized without undergoing any substantive 
changes relevant here; I use the modern lettering and 
numbering of the statute’s subdivisions for clarity. 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
10 
rather than implied.  (§ 846, subd. (d)(3); see Rowland, at p. 114 
[“the invitor owes the invitee a duty to exercise ordinary care to 
avoid injuring him”].)  In other words, it seems paying customers 
and many other invitees were generally owed the same duty of 
care under the statute that they were already owed at common 
law — except that no duty would extend to invitees where the 
invitation was merely implied, rather than express.4 
The main effect of the statute, then, would have been to 
bar a tort suit under conditions similar to those cited in the 
Smith case, in which the court found an implied invitation based 
on the maintenance of facilities suggesting openness to the 
general public.  (Smith, supra, 117 F.Supp. at p. 527.)  In other 
words, a landowner would bear no responsibility for injuries 
suffered 
by 
nonpaying 
campers, 
hikers, 
and 
similar 
adventurers, simply because the landowner maintained roads, 
campsites, or other similar facilities implying openness to public 
recreational use. 
This understanding lines up with what this court has long 
acknowledged to be the purpose of section 846:  “ ‘to allow the 
general public to recreate free of charge on privately owned 
property.’ ”  (Delta Farms, supra, 33 Cal.3d at p. 707, italics 
omitted.)  Various interested actors described the bill in just this 
 
4 
As the majority observes, section 846, subdivision (d)(3) 
“distinguishes those ‘expressly invited’ from those who are 
‘merely permitted’ to come upon the premises.”  (Maj. opn., ante, 
at p. 22.)  As noted above (ante, at pp. 8–9 & fn. 2), the common 
law likewise distinguished between members of the public 
“permitted to enter at will upon the land for their own purposes” 
(licensees) and members of the public who “will not merely be 
tolerated, but [are] expected and desired to come” (invitees).  
(Second Restatement, supra, § 332, com. d, pp. 178–179.)   
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
11 
way.  For instance, the Department of Fish and Game explained 
in a memorandum to the Governor that the basic rule of 
immunity in section 846, subdivision (a), would encourage 
landowners to “open up” land “now closed to public access.”  (Cal. 
Resources Agency, Dept. of Fish and Game, mem. to Governor 
Edmund G. Brown, July 10, 1963.)  Senator Stephen P. Teale, 
the bill author, similarly explained that the purpose of section 
846 was to alleviate the concerns of landowners who had become 
reluctant to “grant permission to trespass” because of the 
potential for tort liability.5  (Sen. Stephen P. Teale, letter to 
Governor Edmund G. Brown, June 20, 1963.)  But he went on to 
explain:  “The owner’s liability remains unchanged when a fee 
is charged or where an owner owes a duty to, or has granted the 
legal status of, an invitee.”  (Ibid.)6  
B. 
At the time section 846 was enacted, Mikayla would not 
have been considered an “invitee” for purposes of the law fixing 
the liability of owners of land; she would instead have been 
considered a social guest.  (See, e.g., Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d 
at pp. 113–114 [discussing this confusing bit of terminology]; see 
 
5 
The phrase “permission to trespass” is admittedly 
something of a contradiction in terms, but it does connote 
concern with access by members of the public, as opposed to, for 
example, dinner guests. 
6  
The same or similar statements of purpose appear in 
several other memoranda in the Governor’s bill file.  An internal 
memorandum to the Governor, for instance, repeated that the 
purpose of the statute was to encourage landowners to grant 
“permission to trespass” and repeated the bill author’s 
statement about the meaning of the exceptions in what is now 
subdivision (d) of section 846.  (Paul D. Ward, Legis. Secretary, 
bill mem. to Governor Edmund G. Brown, July 16, 1963.) 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
12 
generally Second Restatement, supra, § 332, com. a, p. 176.)  As 
this case was litigated at trial and in the Court of Appeal, the 
parties assumed subdivision (a) ordinarily applies to such 
persons, if they were injured while engaged in recreational 
activities on their hosts’ property.7  The parties have further 
assumed — both in the Court of Appeal and in their briefing 
before our court — that the “express invitee” exception 
preserves the ability of some social guests to sue — but only so 
long as those social guests can be said to have been invited (in 
the colloquial sense) “expressly . . . by the landowner.”  (§ 846, 
subd. (d)(3).)   
It is, however, at least questionable whether social guests 
count as persons “expressly invited” within the meaning of 
section 846, because social guests were not “express invitees” — 
or, indeed, invitees of any kind — under the common law that 
formed the backdrop to section 846’s enactment.  (See People v. 
Lopez (2003) 31 Cal.4th 1051, 1060 [terms known to the common 
law are presumed to have their common law meaning]; Arnett v. 
Dal Cielo (1996) 14 Cal.4th 4, 19–20 [same is true even where 
term also has colloquial meaning in everyday speech].)  And this 
question about the scope of the (d)(3) exception naturally leads 
to a more fundamental question about the scope of the statute’s 
general rule:  whether social guests fall within the category of 
 
7  
In this court, Mikayla has for the first time briefly alluded 
to a “social guest exception” to section 846 immunity — but 
without developing any argument for reading such an 
“exception” into the terms of section 846, subdivision (a), as 
opposed to relying on the “express invitation” exception in 
section 846, subdivision (d)(3).  I agree with the majority’s 
decision to decline to address any argument about subdivision 
(a) in the first instance, and to instead allow the parties to 
litigate the question on remand, as appropriate. 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
13 
recreational entrants and users to which the basic rule of 
immunity in subdivision (a) was aimed in the first place.  
Indeed, given the background common law in place at the time, 
it is unclear why the Legislature would have intended either the 
statute’s general immunity provision or its “expressly invited” 
exception to include social guests.  The basic rule of section 846, 
subdivision (a) operates to bar tort lawsuits by relieving 
landowners of any duty of care they might otherwise owe to 
recreational users.  At common law, social guests were not owed 
a general duty of reasonable care.  (Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d 
at p. 114.)  Why would the Legislature have written subdivision 
(a) to eliminate a duty of care that did not otherwise exist?  And 
why would the Legislature have created a special exception in 
section 846, subdivision (d)(3) specifically to allow tort lawsuits 
by a class of persons — social guests of the landowner — who 
were not entitled to sue in the first place? 
It is true that some appellate courts have made the same 
assumptions the parties now make about the meaning of section 
846.  But at least until now, section 846 has not been the focus 
of a great deal of judicial scrutiny.  Indeed, no California court 
cited section 846 in any decision until 1977 — 14 years after 
section 846 was enacted, and nine years after Rowland 
recognized the duties of care a landowner owes to all persons, 
including social guests and other licensees.  (Rowland, supra, 69 
Cal.2d at pp. 119–120.)8  It was not until 1993 — 30 years after 
 
8  
The first California case to cite section 846 was English v. 
Marin Mun. Water Dist. (1977) 66 Cal.App.3d 725.  Two federal 
cases and one out-of-state case had mentioned section 846 
earlier, but in passing and without any substantive discussion 
or analysis.  (See Garfield v. U.S. (W.D.Wis. 1969) 297 F.Supp. 
 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
14 
the statute’s enactment — that the Court of Appeal, in Johnson 
v. Unocal Corp. (1993) 21 Cal.App.4th 310, first had occasion to 
interpret the “expressly invited” exception.  But the Johnson 
court engaged in no significant analysis of the question; its brief 
discussion of the issue simply assumed the phrase bore the 
colloquial meaning it would have had in 1993 — a “direct, 
personal” invitation, as for afternoon coffee or a dinner party — 
without ever acknowledging the different meaning it might have 
carried when enacted.  (Id. at p. 317.)  Since then, Johnson’s 
language has been often repeated, but never analyzed.  (See 
Calhoon v. Lewis (2000) 81 Cal.App.4th 108, 113 (Calhoon); 
Jackson v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (2001) 94 Cal.App.4th 
1110, 1116; Wang v. Nibbelink (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 1, 32.)  
In short, California case law to date has neither 
recognized the common law meaning of the (d)(3) exception — 
under which social guests, as noninvitees at common law, would 
fail to qualify — nor considered the possibility that the personal 
social guests of household members were never intended to fall 
within the category of recreational users or entrants to whom 
section 846, subdivision (a) applies in the first place.  Instead, 
the Courts of Appeal have generally proceeded on the 
assumption that some personal, social invitations to enter 
property qualify for the (d)(3) exception, but only invitations 
extended in some form by the technical owner of the estate or 
other real property interest.  In the very few cases in which the 
issue has concerned a social invitation issued by a child or other 
member of the landowner’s household, courts have sought to 
 
891, 896, fn. 3; Copeland v. Larson (Wis. 1970) 174 N.W.2d 745, 
749, fn. 4; Gard v. U.S. (N.D.Cal. 1976) 420 F.Supp. 300, 302, 
fn. 1.) 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
15 
avoid the seeming arbitrariness of the “by the landowner” 
limitation either by ignoring it (Calhoon, supra, 81 Cal.App.4th 
at p. 114) or by invoking a background “agency law” principle 
under which a child’s invitation may be imputed to his 
landowner parents (this case).  
Admittedly, section 846 now exists within the landscape 
of modern tort law, and it is unclear what the effects would be 
of interpreting the statute to apply as it did at the time it was 
enacted, before the significant changes wrought by Rowland.  
Because of the way the parties have litigated the issues, this is 
not the case for us to undertake a more comprehensive look at 
the threshold question whether section 846 — a statute 
designed to encourage private landowners to open their property 
to public recreational users — has any application to the social 
guests of members of a household.  I therefore agree with the 
majority’s decision to leave that question open.  (See maj. opn., 
ante, at p. 12, fn. 12.)  For reasons I’ve explained, however, the 
issue is a substantial one, and it warrants further exploration in 
an appropriate case. 
C. 
With that said, I turn to the question the parties have 
raised here. The parties’ core dispute at all stages of this 
litigation has been whether Gunner’s personal invitation to 
Mikayla can be attributed to his property-owning parents on 
some form of agency-law theory, thereby bringing his invitation 
within the (d)(3) exception for persons invited to the property 
“by the landowner.”  The Court of Appeal ruled that it could, 
resting that conclusion on the invention of a new “implied 
agency” relationship between landowner parents and their live-
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
16 
at-home children.  (Hoffmann v. Young (2020) 56 Cal.App.5th 
1021, 1029.) 
Today’s majority reverses on the ground that the Court of 
Appeal’s agency holding has no basis in actual agency law.  (Maj. 
opn., ante, at pp. 19–24.)  The majority acknowledges that “one 
way” for an invitation by a nonlandowner to operate as an 
invitation by the landowner is if the nonlandowner is the 
landowner’s actual agent under properly understood “agency 
principles.”  (Id. at p. 15.)  But the majority also explicitly leaves 
open the possibility of other ways to make the showing that a 
nonlandowner’s invitation operates as an invitation by the 
landowner.  (Id. at p. 25, fn. 16.) 
I agree with the majority on each of these points.  But the 
last point, in particular, may benefit from further attention.  
While I agree that agency law — the theory upon which the 
parties have briefed this case to date — is indeed “one way” to 
show that a nonlandowner’s invitation operates as an invitation 
“by the landowner,” it is not one particularly well-suited to 
scenarios like the one we confront in this case:  scenarios 
involving 
invitations 
by 
live-at-home 
members 
of 
the 
landowner’s household.  Agency principles do, of course, have 
their place in understanding section 846, subdivision (d)(3), just 
as they have long had a place in understanding the common law 
landowner duties that preceded and shaped it.  (See, e.g., Neil v. 
Feather River Lumber Co., supra, 203 Cal. at p. 504 [submitting 
to jury question whether managing agents of lumber corporation 
authorized or ratified a train conductor’s conduct in inviting the 
plaintiff to ride on a train on a logging railroad, leading to the 
plaintiff’s 
injury].) 
 
As 
applied 
to 
ordinary 
business 
relationships, agency law gives us a framework for concluding 
that, for example, a landowner should not escape liability for a 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
17 
plaintiff’s injury caused by a dangerous condition of the property 
simply because she has hired a party planner to send out 
invitations rather than posting the envelopes herself.  But as the 
majority notes, and I agree, agency law is an uneasy fit for the 
relationship between parent and child.  (See maj. opn., ante, at 
pp. 20–22; Angus v. London (1949) 92 Cal.App.2d 282, 285 [“The 
relationship of father and child, standing alone, does not prove 
the agency of either”].)  To employ the language of agency law in 
the context of filial relations raises questions to which 
traditional agency principles can supply no clear answers:  What 
does it mean to say a child is the “authorized agent” of his 
parent?  When can a child’s invitation to a friend be said to have 
been made on “behalf” of a parent, who derives no personal gain 
from the invitation — aside, that is, from the gain that comes 
from the social benefits to her child? 
There are, I think, other possible paths here.  As the 
majority explains, we generally read statutes in light of the 
common law principles in place at the time of their enactment.  
(See maj. opn., ante, at p. 15; see, e.g., McMillin Albany LLC v. 
Superior Court (2018) 4 Cal.5th 241, 249; Presbyterian Camp & 
Conference Centers, Inc. v. Superior Court (2021) 12 Cal.5th 493, 
504.)  Agency law is one such principle, but it is not the only one.  
Under another principle, well settled by the time section 846 
was enacted, invitations by legitimate occupants of property 
often were considered invitations “by the landowner.”  Courts in 
the pre-Rowland period considered it clear, for example, that 
“generally, . . .  the landlord bears the relationship of an invitor 
to the invitees of his tenant.”  (Street v. Glorence Bldg. Co., 
supra, 176 Cal.App.2d at p. 196.)  We applied that rule in 
Johnston v. De La Guerra Properties, Inc. (1946) 28 Cal.2d 394, 
in which we explained that “invitees of the tenant are regarded 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
18 
as being invitees of the owner while on passageways which 
invitees of the tenant have a right to use and which are under 
the owner’s control.”  (Id. at p. 399.)  In other words, for portions 
of shared property “used in common by all, the landlord owe[d] 
a duty to those visiting the premises . . . to visit a tenant or at 
his invitation,” since such visitors “are invitees of both landlord 
and tenant.”  (Spore v. Washington (1929) 96 Cal.App. 345, 350; 
see, e.g., Bellon v. Silver Gate Theatres, Inc. (1935) 4 Cal.2d 1, 
14 [“even if the invitation was made by [the tenant],” rather 
than the managing agent of the landlord, the landlord was 
“under a duty to use reasonable care in protecting the premises 
still under its control” when invitees of the tenant “might 
reasonably be expected to enter”]; see id. at p. 4.)9  The rationale 
for treating invitations by the tenant as invitations by the 
landlord was that a landlord reasonably and ordinarily expects 
her tenants to invite visitors to their shared property, and 
should not be heard to complain about legal liabilities flowing 
from invitations she reasonably expects her tenants to issue in 
the ordinary course of social and economic life. 
Essentially all the same things can be said about social 
invitations issued by children to their friends — which is, as the 
majority observes, an ordinary, accepted, and commonplace 
feature of our society.  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 21.)  Rather than 
asking whether a child or other household member acts as a 
landowner’s “authorized agent” when he invites a friend over to 
play — the sort of question we might ask if this were a corporate 
 
9 
The typical scenario involved commercial landlords and 
commercial tenants, since before Rowland was decided in 1968, 
only “invitees” — most commonly, business visitors — were 
generally owed a duty of reasonable care in the first place. 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
19 
merger or a real estate deal rather than an ordinary social 
visit — the common law background to section 846 suggests we 
might ask, more simply, whether the child was authorized to 
invite friends over.  
A contrary reading of section 846 — one in which only 
invitations by a landowner or her agent, in the technical, 
business-oriented sense, suffice for the (d)(3) exception — would 
generate quite unusual results.  The most obvious, and perhaps 
most troubling, would be that children ordinarily would be 
without any remedy for injury when friends invite them over to 
play.  We should not lightly attribute that intent to the 
Legislature, particularly given California’s “strong public policy 
to protect children of tender years” (People v. Olsen (1984) 36 
Cal.3d 638, 646), and particularly when everything we know 
about the statute suggests it was directed to quite different 
concerns.  By insisting on too exacting and technical a notion of 
what it means for a social guest to be invited “by the landowner,” 
we would risk creating an expansive immunity the Legislature 
did not likely intend:  one that could leave many children like 
Mikayla without a remedy if they are injured by dangers on the 
property when they visit a friend’s house to play.  
The oddities presumably would not stop there.  Consider a 
large multigenerational family occupying property to which just 
one or two members of the family — say, a daughter and her 
spouse — formally hold title.  The family hosts a backyard social 
gathering.  Two guests — one invited by the daughter and one 
by a different member of the family — fall onto the same 
unreasonably dangerous lawn sprinkler while playing a 
recreational game of soccer, sustaining equally serious injuries.  
A narrow understanding of what it means for an invitation to be 
issued “by the landowner” could grant the daughter’s guest the 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
20 
right to sue for recreational injury, while the other, identically 
situated guest is left without a remedy — though no obvious 
reason appears for the difference.  Or say a tenant invites guests 
to the common area of her apartment complex for a recreational 
swim.  A guest is injured and sues the landlord for negligent 
maintenance of the swimming pool.  The landlord did not 
personally invite the guest.  Is the guest left without any remedy 
for her injury?  (Cf. Johnson v. Prasad (2014) 224 Cal.App.4th 
74, 76.)  No other state high court has interpreted its state’s 
analogous recreational immunity statute in this way,10 and it 
seems unlikely our Legislature intended for section 846 to 
achieve these sorts of results. 
II. 
Ultimately, I agree with the majority that definitive 
answers about the application of section 846 in this context must 
await further litigation.  (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 12, fn. 12; id. 
at p. 25, fn. 16.)  But in the meantime, the Legislature may wish 
to revisit the statute to clarify the limits of recreational use 
immunity.  Section 846 was enacted against the backdrop of a 
set of common law rules that have not played any substantial 
role in California tort law for more than 50 years, and it 
continues to use language bound to confuse modern readers (and 
courts).  As we have previously noted, “section 846 preserves” in 
recreational activity cases a set of long-vanished common law 
categories:  the “distinction between trespassers, licensees and 
 
10  
See LePoidevin by Dye v. Wilson (1983) 111 Wis.2d 116; 
Loyer v. Buchholz (1988) 38 Ohio St.3d 65; Perrine v. Kennecott 
Mining Corp. (Utah 1996) 911 P.2d 1290; Brown v. Wilson 
(1997) 252 Neb. 782; Estate of Gordon-Couture v. Brown (2005) 
152 N.H. 265; Bucki v. Hawkins (R.I. 2007) 914 A.2d 491; 
Crogan v. Pine Bluff Estates (Vt. 2021) 257 A.3d 247. 
HOFFMANN v. YOUNG 
Kruger, J., concurring 
 
21 
invitees” that governed premises liability cases in California 
prior to Rowland.  (Delta Farms, supra, 33 Cal.3d at p. 706.)  But 
in Rowland, as the majority notes, “this court replaced the 
former concept of liability based on an entrant’s status with the 
current application of liability based on ordinary principles of 
negligence under [Civil Code] section 1714.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at 
p. 9.)  So long as section 846 remains written as it is — built, 
framed, and structured around a set of common law terms — the 
effect will be to require courts perpetually to refer back to a set 
of common law rules that neither comport with modern tort law 
nor the realities of modern social and family life.  (See Rowland, 
supra, 69 Cal.2d at p. 118.)  And for that reason, it will 
inevitably continue to generate confusion about whether 
household guests can seek compensation when they are injured 
because of dangerous conditions on the land they visit.   
Although the Legislature has several times expanded the 
list of activities covered by the section 846, subdivision (a) 
immunity, it has not changed the basic structure of the 
statute — nor the basic list of three exceptions now contained in 
subdivision (d) — since 1963.  This was a statute written for a 
different time, and the Legislature may wish to update it for 
ours.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    KRUGER, J. 
We Concur: 
LIU, J. 
GROBAN, J. 
 
 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who 
argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion  Hoffmann v. Young 
__________________________________________________________  
 
Procedural Posture (see XX below) 
Original Appeal  
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted (published) XX 56 Cal.App.5th 1021 
Review Granted (unpublished)  
Rehearing Granted 
__________________________________________________________  
 
Opinion No. S266003 
Date Filed:  August 29, 2022 
__________________________________________________________  
 
Court:  Superior  
County:  San Luis Obispo 
Judge:  Linda D. Hurst 
__________________________________________________________   
 
Counsel: 
 
Andrade Law Offices and Steven R. Andrade for Plaintiff and 
Appellant. 
 
Horvitz & Levy, Dean A. Bochner, Joshua C. McDaniel, Christopher D. 
Hu; Henderson & Borgeson, Jay M. Borgeson and Royce J. Borgeson 
for Defendants and Respondents. 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for 
publication with opinion): 
 
Steven R. Andrade  
Andrade Law Offices 
211 Equestrian Avenue 
Santa Barbara, CA 93101 
(805) 962-4944 
 
Christopher D. Hu 
Horvitz & Levy LLP 
505 Sansome Street, Suite 375 
San Francisco, CA 94111-3175 
(818) 995-5887