Opinion ID: 1331669
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Elements of Attractive Nuisance

Text: Petitioner argues that attractive nuisance should not require that the thing alleged to be the nuisance be the instrumentality which attracts a child onto the defendant's property. We agree. Although the common law generally imposes no duty on a landowner to protect a trespasser from hidden dangers, see Nettles v. Your Ice Co., 191 S.C. 429, 436, 4 S.E.2d 797, 799 (1939), consideration of the proclivities and instincts of children has long provided an exception to this point in premises liability. As this Court has stated: [O]ne who artificially creates upon his premises any dangerous thing which from its nature has a tendency to attract the childish instincts of children to play with it is bound, as a mere matter of social duty, to take such reasonable precautions as the circumstances admit of, to the end that they may be protected from injury while so playing with it, or coming in its vicinity. Franks v. S. Cotton Oil Co., 78 S.C. 10, 15, 58 S.E. 960, 961 (1907) (citing SEYMOUR D. THOMPSON, 1 COMMENTARIES ON THE LAW OF NEGLIGENCE IN ALL RELATIONS § 1024 (2d ed.1901) [hereinafter THOMPSON ON NEGLIGENCE]). In South Carolina, this consideration of children's susceptibility to fail to perceive the risks of encountering dangerous instrumentalities or conditions has evolved into two exceptions to the common law's general preclusion of a trespasser's ability to maintain a cause of action for premises liability. These exceptions have commonly been termed attractive nuisance and unguarded dangerous condition. Attractive nuisance doctrine provides that where the owner or occupier of land brings or artificially creates something which, from its nature, is especially attractive to children, he is bound to take reasonable pains to see that the dangerous thing is so guarded that children will not be injured in coming into contact with it. Franks, 78 S.C. at 15, 58 S.E. at 961. South Carolina courts first recognized attractive nuisance in the turntable cases. These cases held that infants could recover damages from railroad companies for injuries caused by the failure to lock or properly guard railroad turntables. Bridger v. Asheville and Spartanburg R.R. Co., 25 S.C. 24 (1886). At one time, the United States Supreme Court suggested that the dangerous condition or instrument must have attracted the child onto the defendant's property in order to hold a party liable under a theory of attractive nuisance. United Zinc & Chem. Co. v. Britt, 258 U.S. 268, 276, 42 S.Ct. 299, 66 L.Ed. 615 (1922). [3] Although the majority of our attractive nuisance jurisprudence pays little attention to the reasons for an injured child's presence on the property, IPC correctly argues that this concept, sometimes referred to as the property line rule, eventually crept into this Court's jurisprudence. See Kirven v. Askins, 253 S.C. 110, 117, 169 S.E.2d 139, 142 (1969); Daniels v. Timmons, 216 S.C. 539, 550-51, 59 S.E.2d 149, 155 (1950); and Hancock v. Aiken Mills, 180 S.C. 93, 104, 185 S.E. 188, 193 (1936). See also Miller v. Perry, 308 F.Supp. 863 (D.S.C.1970). This case requires us to determine whether this creeping was justified, and whether our jurisprudence should provide a home for the property line rule. We conclude that both answers are no. A close examination of the property line rule's origins is instructive. Because trespassers were generally barred from recovering from a landowner, attractive nuisance doctrine needed to either amend trespasser liability doctrine for children or create a status for these children other than that of a trespasser. Early case law in this area illustrates that courts solved this dilemma by providing that one who creates an artificial condition on his land that is dangerous to children yet, at the same time, attracts them onto his land to play in, swim in, or wade in it, has granted a child an implied license to enter his property. Miller, 308 F.Supp. at 865; see also Britt, 258 U.S. at 276, 42 S.Ct. 299 (stating [t]here can be no general duty on the part of a land-owner to keep his land safe for children, or even free from hidden dangers, if he has not directly or by implication invited or licensed them to come there.). Viewed through this lens, the property line rule appears justified given that a landowner cannot have extended an implied invitation to enter his property to the child who trespasses for a purpose other than to pursue amusement with the thing that ultimately causes him injury. In South Carolina, however, the usefulness of this distinction is severely weakened after examining attractive nuisance's companion doctrine of unguarded dangerous condition. Quite unlike its counterpart, unguarded dangerous condition disregards the element of attraction; both to the property and to the danger. See Everett v. White, 245 S.C. 331, 335, 140 S.E.2d 582, 584 (1965) (providing that although an artificial condition may not have special attraction for children, when the condition is left so exposed that children are likely to come into contact with it, and where their coming into contact with it is dangerous to them, the person exposing the dangerous thing should anticipate the injury that is likely to happen and is bound to take reasonable pains to prevent it); see also Franks, 78 S.C. at 15, 58 S.E. at 961. Instead of justifying this exception on an implied license to enter another's land, we have recognized that liability in unguarded dangerous condition situations is based upon a mere matter of social duty. Franks, 78 S.C. at 15, 58 S.E. at 961 (discussing both attractive nuisance and unguarded dangerous condition). Though tort law often involves drawing seemingly arbitrary distinctions, it is said that judicial line drawing obligates a court to justify its choice. In this effort, we think recognizing the property line rule in attractive nuisance doctrine is intellectually inconsistent with allowing landowner liability under unguarded dangerous condition theory. In our view, it would be improper to anchor one of these companion theories in the fiction of an implied license, and ground the other in a social duty. As a matter of consistency, we find that these theories, long-recognized as being closely related, are not grounded in traditional tort concepts. See THOMPSON ON NEGLIGENCE § 1042: OWNERS OF PROPERTY LEAVING DANGEROUS OBJECTS UNGUARDED, LIABLE TO TRESPASSING CHILDREN. Instead, these concepts rest on the consideration of the fact that the proclivities and instincts of young children sometimes lead them to seek amusement with artificially created conditions that can cause them serious injury. [4] Although an analysis of precedent may, to some degree, seem unnecessary given that we have found recognition of the property line rule to be inadvisable as a matter of doctrinal consistency, an examination of this Court's premises liability jurisprudence reveals that while the property line rule has appeared in this Court's decisions with some frequency, it has never been faithfully applied. To exhibit this, we focus on the two cases relied upon directly by the court of appeals in the instant case. In Hancock v. Aiken Mills, 180 S.C. 93, 185 S.E. 188 (1936), this Court reversed a damages award to a thirteen-year-old boy who sustained serious burns when he stood near a fire workmen built and watched the workmen as they repaired a neighboring home. Although the language of the property line rule appears in that case, the strongest justification for dismissing the suit was that the child admittedly did not encounter the fire due to a failure to appreciate its danger or a desire to play with it. Id. at 100, 185 S.E. at 191-92. We think the Hancock decision properly expresses considerable doubt as to whether a firewith dangerousness apparent to even young childrencould qualify as an attractive nuisance. Id. at 107, 185 S.E. at 194. Additionally, because the fire in Hancock was on land the plaintiff's family rented, id. at 95, 185 S.E. at 189, the property line rule would require dismissal on that ground alone. The second case relied upon by the court of appeals fares no better. In Kirven v. Askins, 253 S.C. 110, 169 S.E.2d 139 (1969), this Court affirmed a decision setting aside a jury verdict for a twelve-year-old child who sustained injuries to his eye as a result of being struck by a clod of dirt thrown by another child. Instead of disposing of the case based upon the reasons for the injured child's presence on the property, the Court relied primarily on a line of cases which held that similar construction materials were not inherently dangerous to children and that leaving these materials on a construction site did not create an unreasonably dangerous situation. Id. at 117, 169 S.E.2d at 142. Though the property line language undeniably appears in this opinion, the rule was of minimal relevance to the Court's holding. In the instant case, both the trial court and the court of appeals understandably relied on our precedent in reaching their conclusions, but our examination has revealed that the property line rule has only haphazardly appeared and rarely, if ever, been applied in South Carolina. When this is coupled with the fact that we have held this rule cannot co-exist with other firmly-rooted aspects of our premises liability jurisprudence, any case that can be made in favor of adopting the property line rule is a slim one. The better view, in our opinion, is to reject the property line rule's rigid framework as inconsistent with the aforementioned quotation from Franks, which has long-served as the guiding principle in our attractive nuisance jurisprudence. For these reasons, we hold the trial court erred in reasoning that attractive nuisance requires the injured child to be attracted onto the defendant's property by the very temptation which causes injury.