Opinion ID: 1281612
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: History of the Trichotomy

Text: From the outset we must bear in mind that the categories of licensee, invitee, and trespasser evolved in a much different time, and in a significantly different legal climate than exists today. Scholars studying the subject regard the English cases of Parnaby v. Lancaster Canal Co., 11 Ad. & E. 223, 113 Eng. Rep. 400 (Ex. 1839), and Southcote v. Stanley, 1 H. & N. 247, 156 Eng. Rep. 1195 (Ex. 1856), as the progenitors of the licensee/invitee distinction, soon adopted by jurisdictions in this country, e.g. Sweeny v. Old Colony & Newport R.R. Co., 92 Mass. (10 Allen) 368, 87 Am. Dec. 644 (1865). [3] The ancient precept of sanctity of property, and the concept of privity of contract, were the basic principles underpinning the employment of these categories. See Charles P. Dribben, Comment, The Outmoded Distinction Between Licensees and Invitees, 22 Mo. L.Rev. 186, 188 (1957). One of the main benefits, as seen through eyes of the time, of employing the licensee/invitee/trespasser trichotomy was the protection of property owners, who were a privileged minority, from the vagaries of juries, comprised mostly of land entrants and not landowners. [4] Inherent in such a scheme was the notion that a jury could not be trusted to enter a just verdict; however, we have long ago cast off such suspicion of the jury system: Chesterton, the prince of paradox, framing the experience of two millennia in Tremendous Trifles: The Twelve Men, said: Our civilization has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men [natural or artificial] is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the things that I felt in the jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity. Gilbert K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles: The Twelve Men 86-87 (1922). Delp v. Itmann Coal Co., 176 W.Va. 252, 256, 342 S.E.2d 219, 223 (1986) (McGraw, J., dissenting) (alteration in original). [5] In the case before us, the important matter of liability for Mrs. Mallet's injuries was never presented to the jury; the old scheme served its purpose in limiting juror discretion, effectively eliminating the jury entirely from the consideration of the case. This is the most pernicious side effect of the common law trichotomy, and it is no longer in step with the times. We must examine the continuing relevance of the common law trichotomy by viewing it in the context of the time in which it was developed. We must not overlook the fact that some of the hoary and well-established principles that held sway at the time the common law categories were introduced in the mid-19th Century included, slavery, see Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 15 L.Ed. 691 (1856), and a lack of women's suffrage, see Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162, 22 L.Ed. 627 (1874) (confining the right of suffrage to males did not deprive women of property without due process of law), both of which, had they not been abandoned, would, to say the least, have had a negative impact on the recent composition of this Court.