Court Opinion

ID: 9533095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:28:17.96304+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:54.758767
License: Public Domain

Schroeder, J.,
dissenting: In my opinion the danger which exists in connection with the scattered debris of a razed residential building is as obvious to children of tender years as is the danger from drowning in a pool of water or falling from a building or cliff. (Gilliland v. City of Topeka, 124 Kan. 726, 262 Pac. 493; Tavis v. Kansas City, 89 Kan. 547, 132 Pac. 185; Zager v. Railroad Co., 113 Kan. 240, 214 Pac. 107; and Brennan v. Kaw Construction Co., 176 Kan. 465, 271 P. 2d 253.)
In the Brennan case, supra, this court quoted with approval 38 Am. Jur., Negligence, § 151, p. 818, as follows:
“ ‘The character of the danger, as open and obvious, or hidden and latent, is an important consideration. 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.’ ” (pp. 469, 470.)
Nowhere in the amended petition is it alleged that the condition created on the appellant’s premises was novel in character. There is nothing unusual about debris at the site of a demolished building.
In Moseley v. City of Kansas City, 170 Kan. 585, 228 P. 2d 699, it was said:
*648“It is not everything which may attract a child that can be regarded as an attractive nuisance, for there is no limit to the class of objects which may be attractive to a normal child even though he be less than ten years of age (45 C. J., p. 765.) To hold otherwise would place an unreasonable burden upon the owner of almost every kind of property capable of causing personal injury under any circumstances. The condition or appliance must be something unusual and which is of a nature rendering it peculiarly or unusually attractive or alluring to children. . . .” (p. 591.)
In my opinion the condition created by the demolished building, as alleged in the amended petition, does not constitute an unusual and attractive nuisance as a matter of law. It is respectfully submitted the decisions upon which the appellant relies should be controlling of this decision and the lower court reversed.
Parker, C. J., and Price, J., join in the foregoing dissent.