Court Opinion

ID: 9744951
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:24:48.355941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:53.726290
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION
BUCHANAN, P.J.
I would ground our affirmance of the trial court’s decision solely on the principle enunciated in Ft. Wayne National Bank v. Doctor (1971), 149 Ind. App. 365, 272 N.E.2d 876. Our accumulated law on the subject of the duty of owners or occupiers of land to licensees makes no discernible distinction between child licensees and adult licensees.
The general rule in Indiana and elsewhere is that a social guest takes the premises as he finds them.
The general rule is well stated in Annot., 20 A.L.R.3d 1127, 1134 (1968) on Child Social Guest — Injury or Death:
In a number of cases dealing with liability for the injury or death of a child social guest the courts have held applicable to children the general rule, variously stated, that a social guest is a licensee to whom the host owes only the duty to refrain from active wrongdoing and to warn of dangers known to him and not likely to be discovered by the guest.
Children are presumed to have been instructed by their parents of the danger of falling. See Neal v. Home Builders, Inc. (1953), 232 Ind. 160, 111 N.E.2d 280. The danger of falling in jumping from a fence to a tree is hardly one “not likely to be discovered by the guest” (Annot., supra) . . . nor is there any evidence of a “positive wrongful act, entrapment, or willful and wanton conduct by the landowner” as discussed in Ft. Wayne National Bank v. Doctor, supra.
The general rule of non-liability to a social, guest is equally applicable to child or adult. If the danger is one which is known to the host but not likely to be discovered by a child, *96the host may well be liable by application of the general rule as it has been applied in Indiana.
Resort by the majority to the rule stated in section 342 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts as the basis for its opinion, represents a subtle transition from established Indiana law of non-host liability (with clearly defined exceptions) to a negligence standard.1 ... a transition without authority or justification in the law of this State. See authorities discussed in Doctor.
Note. — Reported at 345 N.E.2d 872.

. For additional suggestions that the Restatement position is an intermediate one between the law as set out in Doctor and a standard negligence approach to premises liability, see Note, Premises Liability: A Critical Survey of Indiana Law, 7 Ind. L. Rev. 1001 at 1047, n. 264.