Court Opinion

ID: 9809609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:18:32.552278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:43:04.369167
License: Public Domain

CoNNOR, J.,
dissenting: I think that the refusal of the court at the trial of this action to allow the defendants’ motion, at the close of all the evidence, for judgment as of nonsuit was error. For this reason I cannot concur in the decision of the Court that there was no error in the trial. I think that the judgment should be reversed, and that the action of the plaintiff to recover damages for the death of her intestates should be dismissed.
There was no evidence at the trial tending to show that the well on the land owned by the defendants, in which the plaintiff’s intestates were drowned, was an “attractive nuisance or a dangerous instrumentality.” For this reason the doctrine of the “turntable case,” which has been recognized and approved in this jurisdiction, is not applicable to this case. Gurley v. Power Co., 172 N. C., 690, 90 S. E., 943. That doctrine is founded on an exception to the general rule with respect to the liability of a landowner to trespassers, and should be restricted and not extended. Kramer v. R. R., 127 N. C., 328, 37 S. E., 468. In Briscoe v. Lighting and Power Co., supra, it is said:
“If the exception is to be extended to this case, then the rule of non-liability as to trespassers must be abrogated as to children, and every owner of property must at his peril make his premises childproof. If the owner must guard an artificial pond on his premises, so as to prevent injury to children who may be attracted to it, he must on the same principle guard a natural pond. The courts which have adopted the *408doctrine of the Turntable case’ have uniformly held that it was not to be extended to other structures and conditions. A number of highly respectable courts have rejected it as unsound.” •
Under the decision in this case it would seem that a landowner is liable for injuries to a child who has gone upon his land, and been injured thereby, as an insurer, and not on the principles of actionable negligence as those principles have been heretofore applied. If such be the law, ownership of land in this State carries a hazard which makes it dangerous, for it is well-nigh impossible for a landowner, at all times and under all conditions, to keep his land childproof.