Opinion ID: 2030358
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: memorandum in support of demurrer

Text: Plaintiff's amended complaint does not state a cause of action against these defendants for each of the following reasons: 1. The facts alleged therein do not establish the artificially [artificially] created pit was an attractive nuisance. 2. The facts alleged show that the plaintiff's decedent was a trespasser upon the land of the defendant Churchmembers Life Insurance Company. 3. The facts alleged do not show that the pit described therein was inherently dangerous. 4. The facts alleged do not show that the pit described therein created an unreasonable risk to children of tender years. On the 8th day of January, 1958, the appellee, George F. Kopetsky, filed his demurrer to appellant's amended complaint, which omitting the formal parts, reads as follows:  Comes now the defendant George F. Kopetsky and demurrers to the plaintiff's complaint for the following reasons: 1. That said complaint does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against this defendant. ..... MEMORANDUM Plaintiff's complaint attempts to set up sufficient facts to base his cause of action on the legal principals of attractive nuisance but the facts alleged show that the doctrine is inapplicable here. The plaintiff fails to show facts which would attach liability to the defendant George F. Kopetsky and therefore his complaint should be dismissed. On the 9th day of January, 1958, the trial court sustained the separate demurrers of the appellees. The appellant refused to plead over and the court entered judgment for each of the appellees. Thus the sole question presented here is the correctness of the trial court's ruling in sustaining the demurrer to the amended complaint. We recognize that water, whether in its natural state in streams, lakes or pools, and its contiguous banks, edges and shallows exerts a tremendous, and sometimes fatal fascination for children of all ages, as well as adults. We likewise realize that during the period of childhood, by nature children are carefree, curious, courageous, adventurous, daring, fearless and brave, and that as a result are attracted to what to them is the unusual, the new, the different, the modification or change of a familiar scene or object. Indeed such curiosity is not limited to children. The appellant here urges the abandonment of the attractive nuisance rule now in effect in Indiana, and  the adoption of the doctrine based on section 339, Restatement of the Law of Torts, Volume 2, commonly known as the Restatement Rule, which reads as follows: A possessor of land is subject to liability for bodily harm to young children trespassing thereon caused by a structure or other artificial condition which he maintains upon the land, if (a) the place where the condition is maintained is one upon which the possessor knows or should know that such children are likely to trespass, and (b) the condition is one of which the possessor knows or should know and which he realizes or should realize as involving 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 in it or in coming within the area made dangerous by it, and (d) the utility to the possessor of maintaining the condition is slight as compared to the risk to young children involved therein. Jurisdictions applying the Restatement Rule are cited in 8 A.L.R.2d 1286. The careful and thorough presentation of the appellant's propositions and authorities are persuasive, but not conclusive, no reason has been advanced to cause us to change the rule as it now exists in Indiana. We point out that even if the Restatement Rule was to be applied, recovery would be denied in most drowning cases where the danger is in plain view and is obvious. ... In addition, it may be assumed that dangers which are commonly known, such as the usual risks of water, falling from a height, moving machinery, and of soil caving in, will be understood and appreciated by any child old enough to be allowed to wander.  (Our emphasis.) 32 Ind. L.J. 85.  The appellant contends that the pit and surrounding banks were an attractive nuisance because they were not covered or fenced by the appellees. The law on fences in relation to attractive nuisances is well set out in 38 Am. Jur., Negligence, § 151, p. 818 as follows: ... The doctrine of attractive nuisance, it has been said, is limited in its application to cases where the danger is latent, and affords no basis for a recovery where the injury complained of was produced by a peril of an obvious or patent character. A danger which is not only obvious but natural, considering the instrumentality from which it arises, is not within the meaning of the attractive nuisance doctrine, for the reason that an owner or occupant is entitled to assume that the parents or guardians of a child will have warned him to avoid such a peril. Pits and excavations on land embody no dangers that are not readily apparent to everyone, even very young children. For this reason, the proprietor is under no obligation, as a rule, to fence or otherwise guard such places, and he will not be liable for injuries to children who may have fallen therein. The most recent decisive cases in point in Indiana are: Lockridge v. Standard Oil Co., Inc. (1954), 124 Ind. App. 257, 114 N.E.2d 807; Neal, Admr. v. Home Builders, Inc. (1953), 232 Ind. 160, 111 N.E.2d 280; Plotzki v. Standard Oil Co. (1950), 228 Ind. 518, 92 N.E.2d 632; Anderson v. Reith-Riley Const. Co. (1942), 112 Ind. App. 170, 44 N.E.2d 184. We conclude that the action of the trial court in sustaining the demurrers to the amended complaint was correct, and the judgment of the trial court is therefore affirmed. Bobbitt, J., concurs. Achor, J., concurs in result. Arterburn, J., dissents with opinion. Landis, C.J., concurs in dissent.