Case Name: CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION, INC., OF LAKE WORTH, a Florida corporation, Nathan Adler and Louis Zehnle, Individually, and doing business as Brazillia Apartments, Petitioners, v. Bruce N. PETTERSON, a minor, by and through his Next Friend, Natural Guardian and Father, Birger Petterson, and Birger Petterson, Individually, Respondents
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1968-06-12
Citations: 216 So. 2d 221
Docket Number: Nos. 36764, 36852
Parties: CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION, INC., OF LAKE WORTH, a Florida corporation, Nathan Adler and Louis Zehnle, Individually, and doing business as Brazillia Apartments, Petitioners, v. Bruce N. PETTERSON, a minor, by and through his Next Friend, Natural Guardian and Father, Birger Petterson, and Birger Petterson, Individually, Respondents.
Judges: CALDWELL, C. J., and THOMAS and ROBERTS, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 216
Pages: 221–224

Head Matter:
CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION, INC., OF LAKE WORTH, a Florida corporation, Nathan Adler and Louis Zehnle, Individually, and doing business as Brazillia Apartments, Petitioners, v. Bruce N. PETTERSON, a minor, by and through his Next Friend, Natural Guardian and Father, Birger Petterson, and Birger Petterson, Individually, Respondents.
Nos. 36764, 36852.
Supreme Court of Florida.
June 12, 1968.
On Rehearing Nov. 13, 1968.
Sutton, James, Bielejeski & Lunny, Ft. Lauderdale, and Pomeroy, Blanton, Me- Veigh & Pomeroy, for Concrete Construction, Inc., of Lake Worth.
Jones, Adams, Paine & Foster, West Palm Beach, for Nathan Adler and Louis Zehnle, individually, and d/b/a Brazillia Apartments.
Cone, Wagner, Nugent, Johnson, Mc-Keown & Dell, Ft. Lauderdale, for respondents.

Opinion:
ADAMS, Justice.
In this case we granted certiorari to review a judgment of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, 202 So.2d 191.
The action was brought to recover damages to a minor child. The essence of the suit charges that:
Plaintiff, Bruce Petterson, eleven years old, and a friend entered onto property which was owned by defendants and on which a building was under construction. The plaintiff found some .22 caliber cartridges that were used in a ram-jet instrument designed to drive screws into concrete walls. Plaintiff took some of the cartridges home with him, and he was injured the following day when one of the cartridges exploded. The suit is against the landowners and the contractor.
This action was predicated upon liability under the theory of attractive nuisance. The statement as well as the application of this concept of liability has been fraught with difficulty from the earliest appearance in this Court. See the well considered opinion, concurring and dissenting opinions in Stark v. Holtzclaw, 90 Fla. 207, 105 So. 330, 41 A.L.R. 1323. See also Peters v. City of Tampa, 115 Fla. 666, 155 So. 854.
The law is a science and to apply it we must fix and recognize the status of the parties involved in order to determine the degree of care of one to another. The child who enters upon another's property in response to a special attraction is classified as an implied invitee, and in such status the owner of the premises owes a duty to exercise reasonable care and caution which a prudent person would and should exercise not to injure the child intruder. See Tucker Brothers, Inc. v. Menard, Fla., 90 So.2d 908; Ansin v. Thurston, Fla.App., 98 So.2d 87; Adler v. Copeland, Fla.App., 105 So.2d 594; Miller v. Guernsey Construction Co., Fla.App., 112 So.2d 55; Edwards v. Maule Industries, Inc., Fla.App., 147 So.2d 5.
So the first prerequisite of plaintiff's case is an allegation of the something which allured the child else he had no status calling for reasonable care. Plaintiff here relies upon the premise that any building under construction is such as to allure a child. On this we must declare the District Court in conflict with Miller v. Guernsey Construction Co., supra, wherein it was held that a building under construction is not per se an attractive nuisance. In the absence of the alluring character to attract the child, he would enter as a trespasser and in that case the duty of care would differ in that it would require a showing of gross negligence or wanton or willful injury. Thus the status of the child, whether invitee or trespasser, becomes material: for while an invitee may recover for simple negligence — that is failure to exercise reasonable care and prudence for the child's safety — the trespasser can only recover by establishing gross negligence. Gross negligence simply defined is failure to use slight care.
A portion of the opinion under review, challenging our attention reads as follows:
" Before Florida adopted Restatement, § 339, Cockerham v. R. E. Vaughan [Inc., Fla., 82 So.2d 890], supra, a requirement of the doctrine of 'attractive nuisance' was premised upon an allurement or attraction to the child to the land. This factor is now eliminated from the Restatement of Torts."
Although we often cite the Restatement in such instances as appropriate, we have never adopted it in the sense of altering basic elements in a cause of action. Since this Court first approved this so-called attractive nuisance doctrine in Stark v. Holtzclaw, supra, we have steadfastly held that it must be alleged that defendant allured the youthful plaintiff upon the dangerous premises, for without such showing plaintiff could not attain a status of implied invitee, which status entitles him to recover based upon simple or ordinary negligence.
Our next and final conclusion is in accord with the Circuit Judge in holding the explosion too remote in point of time and location to allow the claim to stand for trial. After the child has satisfied his curiosity and departed from the premises he ceases to be an invitee and his act in exploding the cartridge afterwards upon his own premises is too remote to allow recovery against his would-be host. To recognize liability under such circumstances would be nothing short of making the defendant an insurer of the child's safety at a time and place where defendant would have no knowledge or authority to supervise the child.
The writ having been issued the judgment of the District Court of Appeal is quashed.
It is so ordered.
CALDWELL, C. J., and THOMAS and ROBERTS, JJ., concur.
DREW, J., dissents with opinion.
THORNAL and ERVIN, JJ., dissent and concur with DREW, J.