Opinion ID: 2386147
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the attractive nuisance exception

Text: During the latter part of the nineteenth, and into the twentieth century, the attractive nuisance doctrine developed as a narrow exception to the general rule of landowner liability to trespassers. In 1934, the American Law Institute (ALI) set out its formulation of the attractive nuisance doctrine in the Restatement of Torts. A slightly modified formulation of this doctrine was later published by the ALI in 1959 in the Restatement (Second) of Torts. It reads as follows:  339. Artificial Conditions Highly Dangerous to Trespassing Children A possessor of land is subject to liability for physical harm to children trespassing thereon caused by an artificial condition upon the land if (a) the place where the condition exists is one upon which the possessor knows or has reason to know that children are likely to trespass, and (b) the condition is one of which the possessor knows or has reason to know and which he realizes or should realize will involve an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm to such children and (c) the children because of their youth do not discover the condition or realize the risk involved in intermeddling with it or coming within the area made dangerous by it, and (d) the utility to the possessor of maintaining the condition and the burden of eliminating the danger are slight as compared with the risk to children involved, and (e) the possessor fails to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger or otherwise to protect the children. The courts of this jurisdiction have long recognized the attractive nuisance doctrine as an exception to the general rule of landowner liability to trespassers. Harris v. Roberson, supra ; McGettigan v. National Bank, 115 U.S.App.D.C. 384, 320 F.2d 703, cert. denied, 375 U.S. 943, 84 S.Ct. 348, 11 L.Ed.2d 273 (1963); Hankins v. Southern Transportation Corp., 216 F.Supp. 554 (D.D. C.), aff'd, 117 U.S.App.D.C. 150, 326 F.2d 693 (1963). Quite some time after the doctrine had emerged as an accepted legal theory of recovery, and nine years subsequent to the publication of the first Restatement, the circuit court decided Harris v. Roberson, supra . Harris involved a suit brought by a boy and his father for injuries suffered when the boy fell from, and was run over by, a trailer that was being moved by defendant's truck. The issue on appeal concerned whether the trial court erred in refusing to give a charge which embodied the `attractive nuisance' doctrine. Id. 78 U.S. App.D.C. at 246, 139 F.2d at 529. The court held the doctrine inapplicable to things which become dangerous only when adults set them in motion. Id. Moving railroad cars were cited as an example. [7] In two later cases, McGettigan v. National Bank, supra and Hankins v. Southern Transportation Corp., supra , the circuit court adopted the Restatement formulation of the attractive nuisance doctrine. These two cases cannot, however, be viewed as in any way superseding or overruling Harris, since Harris is neither a formulation nor a statement of the attractive nuisance doctrine. Rather, Harris merely acknowledges one universally endorsed restriction on the doctrine: its inapplicability to injuries from normally operated moving vehicles, including ordinary moving railroad traffic. See Annot., 35 A.L.R.3d 91 (1971).