Court Opinion

ID: 9723422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:14:10.615095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:48.677157
License: Public Domain

Edwards, J.
{concurring). This case concerns a child of tender years — obviously too young to look out for himself. His presence in a place of potential danger, beside a golf course fairway, was known to agents of defendant who were on the tee at the time the golf ball was driven, which caused the loss of the *254boy’s eye. The defendant had a rule against children being on the golf course. At least on this occasion no attempt was made to enforce it. A jury found on these facts that the defendant, city of Detroit, was guilty of negligence.
We are asked to approve setting this award aside because the child was legally a trespasser and, lienee, defendant owed him no duty.
I agree with Justice Smith and the Chief Justice that children are far too valuable to society for us to hold that trespass cancels any legal duty otherwise owed him by a landowner (or his agent) who knows, or should know, of his danger. See 2 Restatement, Torts, §§ 333-339. Although there is, as has been pointed out, a valid legal distinction in the fact that defendant here might be found guilty of active negligence, the clear purport of this case, in my eyes, is to overrule a long line of cases starting with Hargreaves v. Beacon, 25 Mich 1, and ending with Morris v. Lewis Manufacturing Company, 331 Mich 252 (28 ALR2d 214), where Michigan has barred recovery for injuries involving infant trespass — holding the effect of child trespass to be identical with that of adult trespass.
I concur in reversal and remand for entry of the jury award.
Kavanagh, J., took no part in the decision of this case.