Opinion ID: 2139381
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Social Guest

Text: Having examined the three categories of visitors and the duties Indiana landowners owe to each, we turn to the question whether social guests like Burrell should be added as a third type of invitee (in addition to the two categories recognized under § 332). The anomalous position of the social visitor was well described when Professor Fleming James called the guest an invitee who is not an invitee. [7] Like most jurisdictions, Indiana has traditionally classified the social guest as a licensee, even when he is expressly invited to come onto his host's property. Fort Wayne Nat'l Bank v. Doctor (1971), 149 Ind. App. 365, 272 N.E.2d 876. [8] Performing minor tasks for the host's benefit does not make the social guest an invitee. Id. at 376, 272 N.E.2d at 883. Courts have justified the exclusion of social guests from the invitee category on the basis that guests come only to receive their hosts' hospitality and therefore have no right to expect that the hosts will take more precautions for their safety than the hosts would ordinarily take for the safety of members of their own households. See Doctor, 149 Ind. App. at 371, 272 N.E.2d at 880; Lenz v. Mehrens, 149 Mont. 394, 399, 427 P.2d 297, 299 (1967); see generally Tort Liability, supra note 7, at 611-12 (discussing classification of social guest). This justification simply does not comport with modern social practices. As one commentator has noted: It is customary for possessors to prepare as carefully, if not more carefully, for social guests as for business guests; furthermore, the social guest has reasons to believe that his host will either make conditions on the premises safe or at least warn of hidden dangers. In this century there is no reason for the courts to take the position that a social guest should not sue his host. McCleary, The Liability of a Possessor of Land in Missouri to Persons Injured While on the Land, 1 Mo.L.Rev. 45, 58 (1936). As we see it, the reasons for the Restatement's use of an invitation-based test support requiring landowners to exercise reasonable care for the protection of their invited social guests. If a landowner induces a social guest to enter his land by express or reasonably implied invitation, then the landowner leads that guest, like any other entrant, to believe that the land has been prepared for his safety. Like its predecessor, the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 330 continues to classify social guests as licensees. We think this classification reflects the stated objective of the American Law Institute in creating the Restatement, to present an orderly statement of the general common law of the United States. Restatement of Torts viii (1934). Even by the time the Institute revised its work on torts in 1965, the authors noted an undercurrent of dissent, based upon the contention that it is not in accord with modern social custom and understanding when a guest is invited. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 330 comment h(3). Mr. Burrell and the visitors in the three other cases we decide today were all individuals known to the landowner who came to the premises upon actual invitation or arguably upon standing invitation. We conclude that a landowner should exercise reasonable care for the safety of such guests. In sum, we hold that social guests are invitees. Because social guests are invitees, they are entitled to a duty of reasonable care from landowners as that duty is defined in Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343, quoted above.