Opinion ID: 1281612
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Heading Rank: 2

Heading: A Standard Both New and Old

Text: Today we hold that the common law distinction between licensees and invitees is hereby abolished; landowners or possessors now owe any non-trespassing entrant a duty of reasonable care under the circumstances. We retain our traditional rule with regard to a trespasser, that being that a landowner or possessor need only refrain from willful or wanton injury. Though our decision might seem a radical departure from past cases, in its basic philosophy it is not. We have held since the 19th Century that: Negligence is the violation of the duty of taking care under the given circumstances. It is not absolute, but is always relative to some circumstances of time, place, manner, or person. Syl. pt. 1, Dicken v. Liverpool Salt & Coal Co., 41 W.Va. 511, 23 S.E. 582 (1895). Although before today we have allowed the old labels to limit a court's examination of a negligent act, we have recognized that the foreseeability of an injury is dispositive of the duty owed: The ultimate test of the existence of a duty to use care is found in the foreseeability that harm may result if it is not exercised. The test is, would the ordinary man in the defendant's position, knowing what he knew or should have known, anticipate that harm of the general nature of that suffered was likely to result? Syl. pt. 3, Sewell v. Gregory, 179 W.Va. 585, 371 S.E.2d 82 (1988); see Robertson v. LeMaster, 171 W.Va. 607, 612, 301 S.E.2d 563, 568 (1983). In so holding in Sewell, we were in accord with Justice Cardozo's celebrated maxim: The risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed .... Palsgraf v. Long Island R. Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 344, 162 N.E. 99, 100 (1928). We are quick to recognize, however, that foreseeability is not all that the trier of fact must consider when deciding if a given defendant owed a duty to a given plaintiff, even in the absence of the licensee/invitee distinction: While the existence of a duty is defined in terms of foreseeability, it also involves policy considerations including the likelihood of injury, the magnitude of the burden of guarding against it, and the consequences of placing that burden on the defendant. Harris v. R.A. Martin, Inc., 204 W.Va. 397, 401, 513 S.E.2d 170, 174 (1998) (per curiam) (quoting Robertson v. LeMaster, 171 W.Va. at 611, 301 S.E.2d at 567). Some factors that other jurisdictions have included in the analysis of whether a landowner or occupier has exercised reasonable care under the circumstances include the seriousness of an injury, see O'Leary v. Coenen, 251 N.W.2d 746, 751 (N.D.1977), the time, manner and circumstances under which the injured party entered the premises, and the normal use made of the premises, see Sheets v. Ritt, Ritt & Ritt, Inc., 581 N.W.2d 602, 606 (1998); Heins v. Webster Co., 250 Neb. at 760-61, 552 N.W.2d at 57. We hold that, in determining whether a defendant in a premises liability case met his or her burden of reasonable care under the circumstances to all non-trespassing entrants, the trier of fact must consider (1) the foreseeability that an injury might occur; (2) the severity of injury; (3) the time, manner and circumstances under which the injured party entered the premises; (4) the normal or expected use made of the premises; and (5) the magnitude of the burden placed upon the defendant to guard against injury. [15] While we have long purported to follow the licensee/invitee/trespasser trichotomy without deviation, we have been willing, when the facts demanded it, to carve exceptions. The most obvious example is the exception created for children who were not invitees when injured: Although the Attractive Nuisance Doctrine is not recognized in this State, this Court has adopted a rule quite similar to that Doctrine and has held that where a dangerous instrumentality or condition exists at a place frequented by children who thereby suffer injury, the parties responsible for such dangerous condition may be held liable for such injury if they knew, or should have known, of the dangerous condition and that children frequented the dangerous premises either for pleasure or out of curiosity. Sutton v. Monongahela Power Co., 151 W.Va. 961, 971, 158 S.E.2d 98, 104 (1967). Accord Hatten v. Mason Realty Co., 148 W.Va. 380, 135 S.E.2d 236 (1964); Brown v. Carvill, ___ W.Va. ___, ___ S.E.2d. ___, 1998 WL 394654 slip op. (No. 23941, July 16, 1998). This rule focuses, not upon the child's entrant classification, but upon the foreseeability of the harm. Although we do not today alter our treatment of the common law category of trespasser, the logic in Sutton is in harmony with our decision in the instant case. But our focus has not always been so sharp. For many years, the licensee/invitee distinction has distracted us when examining a given negligent act, and forced us to ask the extraneous question of who was injured? before asking what was the risk reasonably to be perceived? For example, the holding in Self v. Queen, supra , precluded recovery by a woman who was injured when she stepped into a hole in her mother's yard. Our analysis centered on the woman's entrant classification, but never reached the question of the risk reasonably to be perceived, presented by the presence of the hole in the yard. Thus, the classifications have acted like a filter; when trying to determine if a defendant has acted negligently, the important question of foreseeability we have seen through a glass, darkly. By removing the invitee/licensee distinction, we are now able to see the question of foreseeability, face to face.