Court Opinion

ID: 9780835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 02:59:37.187719+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:14.781966
License: Public Domain

STROUD, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
As noted by the majority opinion, plaintiffs contend on appeal that the trial court committed three errors in the jury instructions: (1) denying plaintiffs’ requested jury instruction on a landowner’s duty of care; (2) instructing the jury on a landowner’s duty of care without addressing the import of plaintiff Chelsea’s age; and (3) failing to provide the correct instructions in response to the jury’s question regarding consideration of age and the landowner’s duty of care, thus misleading the jury and altering the outcome of the case. The majority holds that the trial court did not err by denying plaintiffs’ requested jury instruction on a landowner’s duty of care, because the requested instruction “contained an incorrect statement of law: the reference to a ‘higher level of care[,]’ ” and I concur with the majority as to this issue. The trial court properly refused to give the instructions as requested by plaintiffs. However, I dissent as to the remaining two issues, as I believe that the substance of the second and third issues is the same as the first, and that the instructions as given by the trial court were a correct and complete statement of the law. I would therefore affirm the trial court’s judgment and denial of plaintiffs’ motion for a new trial.
Although the majority holds that the jury instructions as requested by plaintiffs are incorrect because they refer to a “higher level of care” applicable to plaintiff Chelsea based upon her age, the majority then goes on, in addressing the second issue, to hold that the trial court should have instructed the jury as to a higher standard of care, specifically that “the jury must be instructed to consider the known or reasonably foreseeable characteristics of lawful visitors when determining whether the defendant has discharged its duty to exercise reasonable care in maintaining its property for the protection of the plaintiff.” I believe that this instruction, in this case, would *101give improper emphasis to the age of the plaintiff under existing case law and would create a “higher standard of care” in any case where a plaintiff has some sort of “characteristic” which may decrease that person’s ability to look out for her own safety, be it her youth, physical disability, mental disability, or any other characteristic which might be “reasonably foreseeable.” But our law already takes these factors into consideration in the determination of negligence in several ways.
First and foremost, a jury makes the determination of the standard of care required by a reasonable landowner by considering the totality of the circumstances of a particular case. These circumstances may include the location, the time of day, lighting conditions, type of facility, and even the foreseeable characteristics of lawful visitors. These are all factual determinations and evidence as to all of these factors is relevant in the determination of what is “reasonable.” For example, bur Supreme Court in Pulley v. Rex Hospital, 326 N.C. 701, 392 S.E.2d 380 (1990) reversed summary judgment for the defendant based on a genuine issue of material fact where the plaintiff tripped and fell on an irregularity in the sidewalk leading to the emergency room entrance, at night, with inadequate lighting. The Court noted that
[v]iewed in sum, our prior cases merely establish that the facts must be viewed in their totality to determine if there are factors which make the existence of a defect in a sidewalk, in light of the surrounding conditions, a breach of the defendant’s duty and less than “obvious” to the plaintiff. Such factors may include the nature of the defect in the sidewalk, the lighting at the time of the accident, and whether any other reasonably foreseeable conditions existed which might have distracted the attention of one walking on the sidewalk. See Frendlich v. Vaughan’s Foods, 64 N.C. App. 332, 337, 307 S.E.2d 412, 415 (1983).
Id. at 706, 392 S.E.2d at 384. The Court also noted
that a reasonable juror, in considering whether the defendant breached its duty to the plaintiff and whether the plaintiff was exercising ordinary care in watching where she was walking, might consider a fault in a sidewalk leading into a hospital emergency room quite differently from an identical fault in an ordinary city sidewalk. A reasonable juror could believe that people entering emergency rooms are frequently and foreseeably very distracted from their ordinary behavior.
Id. at 708, 392 S.E.2d at 385. Although the Pulley court was considering a motion for summary judgment, the applicable law is the same *102for purposes of summary judgment and for jury instructions. I have no disagreement at all with the majority’s reasoning that the “reasonably foreseeable characteristics” of lawful visitors are an important consideration in the jury’s determination of reasonableness of a landowner’s actions in maintaining a property in safe condition. But this is an evidentiary consideration and does not require a variation from the pattern jury instructions as given by the trial court. Although our Courts have addressed cases dealing with schools, day care centers, nursing homes, hospitals, and all sorts of locations where it is reasonably foreseeable that the lawful visitors to that location will have characteristics of age or impairment which may have an effect on the reasonable standard of care applicable to that facility, I have been unable to find a single North Carolina case which has included jury instructions as to negligence which focus upon the characteristics of visitors or characteristics of the property location. In certain cases, a higher standard of care may be imposed by a safety statute or regulation, see Cooper v. Southern Pines, 58 N.C. App. 170, 174, 293 S.E.2d 235, 237 (1982) (stating that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 160A-296 “create [s] an affirmative duty of care: A city shall have ‘[t]he duty to keep the public streets, sidewalks, alleys, and bridges . . . free from unnecessary obstructions.’ ”), and a jury is properly instructed according to that standard. But that is not the case here. In this case, evidence was presented as to all of these factors. At trial, plaintiff presented evidence of plaintiff Chelsea’s age and inexperience, as opposed to the inability of even an experienced adult hiker to appreciate the risk presented by New Years Creek. There was evidence of defendant’s past efforts to prevent people from leaving the platform, including the map sign and the wooden board affixed between the viewing platform and a tree, although defendant had allowed some of these safety precautions to deteriorate or be removed. There was evidence that shortly prior to plaintiff Chelsea’s fall, two men were seriously injured in the same location, so that arguably defendant should have taken immediate action to prevent access to the creek or at the very least to post stem and specific warnings of the serious danger presented by the falls. The jury considered all of this evidence, as well as other evidence, in its totality, and made its determination using the pattern jury instructions as to negligence of a landowner which have been used by North Carolina’s courts thousands of times. These jury instructions are a correct statement of the law.
Our law does provide for specific instructions as to standards of care and negligence to accommodate certain characteristics of those injured by negligence. In this case, plaintiff Chelsea’s age was *103addressed specifically by the instruction as to contributory negligence. The jury was instructed to take her age into account as she is not held to an adult standard:
A child who is between seven and fourteen years of age is not required to exercise the same degree of care for the safety of others that is required of an adult. The law imposes a duty upon a child to exercise only that degree of care for the safety of others that a reasonably careful child of the same age, discretion, knowledge, experience and' capacity ordinarily would exercise under the same or similar circumstances. The degree of care required varies with the child’s age, discretion, knowledge, experience and capacity. A child’s failure to exercise the required degree of care would be negligence[.]
Plaintiff Chelsea’s age changed her own standard of care to look out for herself; it does not, in and of itself, change the defendant’s standard of care toward reasonably foreseeable lawful visitors in general. In Hoots v. Beeson, 272 N.C. 644, 648-50, 159 S.E.2d 16, 1921 (1968), our Supreme Court examined many cases in which minor children of various ages were injured by the alleged negligence of tortfeasors. In Hoots, the issue was whether the correct jury instructions were given as to the contributory negligence of an 11 year old child. Id. at 645-46, 159 S.E.2d at 18. But in each case discussed, the child’s age is relevant for purposes of the jury instructions only as to contributory negligence-, I have found no North Carolina case regarding a jury instruction as to negligence which has specifically addressed the effect of the age of the persons who might foreseeably be injured by the tortfeasor’s allegedly negligent act. Again, this is not to say that the characteristics of persons who might foreseeably be injured by a negligent act are not relevant; they are relevant to the jury’s determination of what would constitute “reasonable care” in the particular circumstances as noted above. But including a specific instruction as to the “reasonably foreseeable characteristics” of the lawful visitor in this case places double emphasis on plaintiff Chelsea’s age. She is presumed incapable of contributory negligence, and the majority also would require an instruction that the defendant must exercise a higher standard of care because it is “reasonably foreseeable” that children of age 12, as well as children of all ages from crawling babies on up may visit public recreational areas such as New Years Creek.
Plaintiffs relied heavily on Hedrick v. Tignire, 267 N.C. 62, 147 S.E.2d 550 (1966) as to its proposed jury instruction which the majority rejected as an incorrect statement of the law, but the majority also *104relies almost entirely upon Hedrick in creating its new rule that a jury must be instructed specifically on the “reasonably foreseeable characteristics” of the lawful visitor as part of the negligence instruction. I find Hedrick distinguishable. Plaintiffs, citing Hedrick, argue that a landowner’s duty 'to warn is dependent upon the age of the lawful visitor. Hedrick is discussed in depth in the majority opinion and I will not repeat the details of the case. However, in Hedrick, the Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment of non-suit, holding that there was no evidence that the defendant’s actions in waxing the floor were the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries, the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur did not apply, and it was not negligent per se to wax and polish the dance floor. Id. at 67-68, 147 S.E.2d at 554.5 I also note that no jury instructions were involved in Hedrick, as the case never made it that far. Yet plaintiffs argue, and the majority agrees, that the rule in Hedrick should be applied here to support a specific jury instruction as to consideration of plaintiff Chelsea’s “reasonably foreseeable characteristics” in determining the standard of care. Defendant argues that Hedrick addressed a landowner’s duty as to a minor invitee injured by an artificial condition of the property, but because plaintiff Chelsea was injured by a natural condition of the land, the rule in Hedrick is not applicable.
The cases, other than Hedrick, cited by plaintiffs in support of their argument as to the heightened standard of care as to minors6 are no longer applicable after Nelson v. Freeland, 349 N.C. 615, 507 *105S.E.2d 882 (1998) because they address the increased duty for landowners as to minor-licensees, but the lesser status of licensee was eliminated by Nelson. Id. at 631-32, 507 S.E.2d at 892. The majority properly determines that since Nelson, only two standards of care exist, as to either a lawful visitor or a trespasser.
In contrast to Hedrick, this Court, in Waltz v. Wake County Bd. of Educ., 104 N.C. App. 302, 409 S.E.2d 106 (1991), disc. review denied, 330 N.C. 618, 412 S.E.2d 96 (1992), addressed the plaintiffs’ claim against a defendant board of education for injuries sustained by a minor-invitee as the result of an injury caused by a natural condition of the land. Although Waltz deals with a minor child injured by a natural condition of the land and is in this regard most similar to the case before us, the majority does not mention it. In Waltz, the plaintiffs filed a claim for negligence against the defendant school board for injuries sustained by the minor-plaintiff, an eight-year-old student in second grade, after he was injured by tripping on a tree-root in the school’s playground. Id. at 302, 409 S.E.2d at 106. The trial court granted defendant’s summary judgment motion, dismissing the plaintiffs’ claim. Id. On appeal, this Court noted that “[a] student attending school is an invitee while on the property of that school.” Id. at 304, 409 S.E.2d at 107 (citation omitted). The Court defined the defendant school board’s duty:
A landlord owes a duty to an invitee to use reasonable care to keep the premises safe and to warn of hidden dangers, but he is not an insurer of the invitee’s safety. (Citations omitted.) . . . These rules apply to a public school or board of education just as they apply to any other landlord, if the board of education has waived the defense of sovereign immunity (as defendant has done in the present case) by purchasing a liability insurance policy....
Id. (citation omitted). This Court went on to hold that the plaintiffs had failed to show that the defendant had breached its duty, explaining that
“[r]ecovery has generally not been permitted for injuries suffered by children on school grounds as a result of common, permanent, or natural conditions existing thereon.” 68 Am. Jur. 2d Schools *106§ 325 (1973). We do not go so far as to say that a school may never be liable for injury resulting from a natural condition. However, school officials simply cannot be expected to protect children from every natural condition they may encounter on a school yard or a playground. Falls and mishaps, though unfortunate, are a part of every schoolchild’s life and are something that neither teachers nor parents can reasonably be expected to guarantee to prevent. Here, the school took reasonable steps to protect its students by placing sand underneath and around playground equipment. This did not serve to aggravate the natural condition of the roots. If anything, it served to mitigate it by cushioning the fall of students.
Id. at 304, 409 S.E.2d at 107-08. Although it was decided in the specific context of defining the duty a school board owed to the students attending its schools, Waltz is instructive because it addressed a defendant-landowner’s duty to a minor-invitee injured by a natural condition of the land. In addition, Waltz addressed the duty of care owed by a public facility, a school, to young children. However, Waltz did not base its ruling as to the standard of care upon the age or other characteristics of the injured child, but noted that “[rjecovery has generally not been permitted for injuries suffered by children on school grounds as a result of common, permanent, or natural conditions existing thereon.” Id. at 304, 409 S.E.2d at 107. The Waltz decision regarding the duty owed to a minor-invitee was decided preNelson, but as the majority noted “the present standard for all lawful visitors is the same as it was prior to Nelson for invitees.” I recognize the difficulty of our current application of pre-Nelson cases, as Nelson abolished one aspect of premises liability law, the distinction between trespassers, licensees, and invitees, but kept the rest of the common law which had developed, including how standards of care may apply in different factual contexts. I have attempted to follow the precedents set by portions of the case law which were not changed by Nelson, and I believe that the majority has treated Nelson as abrogating portions of the common law which it did not. Thus I believe it is relevant that this case arises from an injury to a child from a common, permanent, natural condition of the land. I do not believe that this creates a “bifurcated approach” to the law of negligence as applied to natural versus manmade conditions, as noted by the majority, but simply recognizes the application of the general standard of “reasonable care” in different factual situations, in accord with our prior case law.
*107As noted above, in Hedrick, the minor-plaintiff alleged that her injuries were caused by the defendant’s dance floor, an artificial condition. 267 N.C. at 63-64, 147 S.E.2d at 552. In contrast, plaintiff Chelsea was injured on defendant’s property when she fell down in New Years Creek and went over Glen Bumey Falls, which are permanent, natural conditions of defendant’s land. Accordingly, I agree with defendant that the facts here are distinguishable from Hedrick. Hedrick sets forth the general rule applicable as to conditions which have been created by the landowner- artificial conditions- on the landowner’s premises:
The rule of law is stated in the same words for all these situations — the proprietor must use the care a reasonable man similarly situated would use to keep his premises in a condition safe for the foreseeable use by his invitee but the standard varies from one type of establishment to another because different types of businesses and different types of activities involve different risks to the invitee and require different conditions and surroundings for their normal and proper conduct.
267 N.C. at 67, 147 S.E.2d at 553-54.
Plaintiff goes too far one way in its arguments on the applicable standard of care, while defendant goes too far the other way. I believe the correct standard lies in the middle, and the trial court instmcted the jury accordingly. Defendant argues that “when dealing with a natural condition that is open and obvious a landowner has no duty to take additional precautions for children using the property.” However, the cases that defendant cites in support of its argument are in the context of the attractive nuisance doctrine. See Leonard v. Lowes Home Centers, Inc., 131 N.C. App. 304, 506 S.E.2d 291 (1998), disc. review denied, 350 N.C. 97, 528 S.E.2d 364 (1999); McCombs v. City of Asheboro, 6 N.C. App. 234, 170 S.E.2d 169 (1969); Fitch v. Selwyn Village, Inc., 234 N.C. 632, 68 S.E.2d 255 (1951). The attractive nuisance doctrine operates as “an exception to the general rule regarding the liability of landowners for injuries sustained on the premises by trespassers." Lanier v. North Carolina State Highway Com., 31 N.C. App. 304, 310, 229 S.E.2d 321, 324 (1976) (emphasis added). Here, plaintiff Chelsea was not a trespasser; she was lawfully on defendant’s property. Therefore, the cases cited by defendant in support of its argument that it owes no duty to take additional precautions in anticipation of minor lawful visitors as to natural conditions of the land are inapplicable. Other than Waltz, I find no relevant *108North Carolina cases that address a landowner’s duty to a minor-lawful visitor injured by a natural condition of the land. However, as the attractive nuisance cases cited by defendant do address a landowner’s duty to child-trespassers in the context of natural conditions of the land, I find them instructive in considering defendant’s duty to a minor lawful-visitor who is injured by a natural condition on defendant’s land.
In Fitch, the plaintiff’s intestate, age two, lived with his parents in one of the defendant’s apartments, which was located about 20 yards from Sugar Creek in Charlotte, North Carolina. 234 N.C. at 633, 68 S.E.2d at 256. The plaintiff’s intestate wandered down to Sugar Creek and drowned. Id. The plaintiff brought a wrongful death action against the defendant apartment owner, alleging that
there was no fence or other obstruction to prevent small children from falling or climbing down the creek banks to the open waters of Sugar Creek; that defendant knew, or by the exercise of reasonable care could have known, that the banks and waters of Sugar Creek, as it passed over the apartment properties, was a common resort of children and constituted a condition which was inherently dangerous to small children.
Id. The trial court sustained the defendant’s demurrer, dismissing the plaintiff’s claims, and the plaintiff appealed. Id. at 634, 68 S.E.2d at 256-57. On appeal, the Court reasoned that
[i]t is a matter of common knowledge that streams of water are attractive to children, and that thousands of them flock to them during each year for the purpose of wading or swimming in their cool and refreshing waters, or to fish therein, notwithstanding the common dangers that may exist in such use of our natural streams.
Id. at 635, 68 S.E.2d at 257. The Court, in discussing a landowner’s duty and the hazards which are inherent to a natural condition of the land, noted that
[t]he owner of a thing dangerous and attractive to children is not always and universally liable for an injury to a child tempted by the attraction. His liability bears a relation to the character of the thing, whether natural and common, or artificial and uncommon; to the comparative ease or difficulty of preventing the danger without destroying or impairing the usefulness of the thing; and, in short, to the reasonableness and propriety of his own conduct, in view of all surrounding circumstances and conditions. As to *109common dangers, existing in the order of nature, it is the duty of parents to guard and warn their children, and, failing to do so, they should not expect to hold others responsible for their own want of care. But, with respect to dangers specially created by the act of the owner, novel in character, attractive and dangerous to children, easily guarded and rendered safe, the rule is, as it ought to be, different; and such is the rule of the turntable cases, of the lumber pile cases, and others of a similar character.
If it should be conceded that a branch or creek is inherently dangerous to children of tender years, it must also be conceded that such streams cannot be easily guarded and rendered safe. A street is ordinarily an unsafe place for a child of tender years to play, but the location of a house near a street does not impose upon the landlord any obligation to protect the children of his tenant from injury caused by playing in such street. Streets, like streams, cannot be easily guarded and rendered inaccessible to children.
Id. at 635-36, 68 S.E.2d at 257-58. (citations and quotation marks omitted). The Court went on to hold that “the plaintiffs complaint do[es] not make out a cause of action for actionable negligence against the defendant” and affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the plaintiff’s complaint. Id. at 636, 68 S.E.2d at 258.
In Leonard, the minor plaintiff, age nine, “was seriously injured when she rode her bicycle down a dirt pathway on a steep slope from defendant’s property into the street and collided with a car.” 131 N.C. App. at 305, 506 S.E.2d at 292. The steep slope was “located partially upon defendant’s property, and was created when defendant graded its property for development as a store site in 1986.” Id. The minor-plaintiff and her mother brought a claim on behalf of the minor-plaintiff alleging that “the pathway on the steep slope is a dangerous condition subjecting defendant landowner to liability under the doctrine of attractive nuisance.” Id. At trial, a jury found the defendant negligent but also found the minor plaintiff to be contributorily negligent. Id. A judgment was entered dismissing the plaintiffs’ complaint with prejudice, and the plaintiff appealed. Id. On appeal, this Court reasoned that,
[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 *110child will have warned him to avoid such a peril.... [B] odies of water and streets have generally been considered so natural, pervasive and obvious a danger, that landowners cannot be expected to protect young children from the dangers despite their allurement to children of tender years. Hedgepath v. City of Durham, 223 N.C. 822, 823, 28 S.E.2d 503, 504-05 (1944)[.]
Id. at 307-08, 506 S.E.2d at 293-94. The Court went on to hold that the downhill path was “a natural and obvious condition, creating no legal duty upon defendant to take precautions against harm to young children[,]” and affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiffs complaint. Id. at 309-10, 506 S.E.2d at 294-95.7
Our courts have previously noted the burden of making natural features of the land safe, especially bodies of water, is particularly high. “[S]treams[] cannot be easily guarded and rendered inaccessible to children.” Fitch, 234 N.C. at 636, 68 S.E.2d at 258. I therefore disagree with the majority that there is no distinction in the caselaw as the application of the standard of “reasonable care” to artificial conditions as opposed to natural conditions of the land, and I would rely upon the case which has addressed natural conditions, Waltz.
The status of the minor-plaintiff as a lawful visitor and not a trespasser does not alter the hazards which are inherent to natural conditions, such as streams, waterfalls, or rivers, nor does her status minimize the difficulty in guarding and rendering such conditions safe, as noted by our Courts in Fitch and Leonard. Defendants do have a duty “to use ordinary care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition for lawful visitors who use them in a reasonable and ordinary manner.” See N.C.P.I.-Civ. 805.55 (2008). Because the ages of lawful minor visitors may vary from crawling babies to teenagers, the practical result of a “characteristic”-based jury instruction on the standard of care would be to require landowners to “babyproof’ every inch of potentially dangerous natural features of land, including rivers, streams, and, for that matter, the shorelines of North. Carolina’s sounds and the Atlantic Ocean. As the majority opinion adopts the broad language of the “reasonably foreseeable characteristics” of the lawful visitor, the instruction as approved could require *111a landowner to attempt to make every inch of its property — since people do tend to wander off of marked trails — even natural conditions on the land, safe for every “foreseeable” lawful visitor despite his age or disabilities.8
Plaintiffs argue that their “requested instruction incorporates North Carolina jurisprudence concerning the negligence of minors between seven and fourteen years old” for purposes of contributory negligence of a minor. See Hedrick, 267 N.C. at 65, 147 S.E.2d at 552 (“The plaintiff, being only 13 years of age at the time of her fall, is presumed to have been incapable of contributory negligence. Hutchens v. Southard, 254 N.C. 428, 119 S.E.2d 205 [(1961)]; Adams v. State Board of Education, 248 N.C. 506, 103 S.E.2d 854 [(1958)]. Though this presumption is rebuttable, the burden of rebutting it is upon the defendants.”). Essentially, plaintiffs argue that both the standard of care owned by the landowner and the standard of care of the lawful visitor to watch out for her own safety should vary based upon the characteristics of the visitor. Neither plaintiffs nor the majority opinion have cited any cases which would support the proposition that the jury instructions as to both the duty of the landowner and the standard for contributory negligence should be based upon the age of the lawful visitor. The age of the minor lawful visitor is taken into consideration as to the issue of contributory negligence, see Welch v. Jenkins, 271 N.C. 138, 142, 155 S.E.2d 763, 766-67 (1967), and the jury here was instructed as to the presumption that a child of plaintiff Chelsea’s age is presumed to be incapable of contributory negligence. I find no support in the prior cases for plaintiffs’ argument that the same standards used as to children for purposes of *112contributory negligence should be applied to determine the standard of care owed by the landowner.
Here, defendant had opened up the land on which Glen Burney Falls and New Years Creek were located to the public and had a reason to expect visitors of all ages would explore the property. Therefore, rather than hold that landowners owe no duty to take additional precautions for minor lawful-visitors as to natural conditions of the land, as defendant argues, or, as in Fitch, 234 N.C. at 635-36, 68 S.E.2d at 257-58, shift that duty entirely to the minor’s parents, I would hold that for permanent, naturally occurring conditions, such as the stream and waterfall in question, landowners owe lawful visitors, including minors, the same duty established in Nelson, 349 N.C. at 631-32, 507 S.E.2d at 892: “the duty to exercise reasonable care in the maintenance of their premises for the protection of lawful visitors.” In addition, the landowner has a duty to give adequate warning to lawful visitors of “any hidden or concealed dangerous condition about which the owner knows or, in the exercise of ordinary care should have known.” James v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 141 N.C. App. 721, 724, 543 S.E.2d 158, 160 (Edmunds, J., dissenting), reversed per curiam, 354 N.C. 210, 552 S.E.2d 140 (2001) (adopting J. Edmunds dissent). As defendant had opened up a portion of New Years Creek, Glen Burney Falls, and the surrounding property to the public and had made trails and built observation platforms to view the waterfalls, it owed its lawful visitors the duty to exercise reasonable care in the maintenance of the premises and to warn visitors of hidden or concealed dangers of which it was aware or should have been aware. Certainly these visitors might include both adults and children of all ages, but it is the jury’s role to determine if the defendant’s actions or omissions were consistent with the duty of “reasonable care” owed to all lawful visitors. Based upon the evidence presented and the jury instructions as given, the jury could have found that defendant failed to exercise reasonable care and that defendant was negligent in maintaining the premises or in failing to provide sufficient warning of the danger posed by Glen Burney Falls, but it did not. Because the jury instructions were correct, I believe that the jury’s verdict should stand. As plaintiffs’ requested instruction that “[a] landowner owes a higher level of care to a child who is unable to appreciate a potential of danger[,]” was not a correct statement of the law, Liborio v. King, 150 N.C. App. 531, 534, 564 S.E.2d 272, 274 (2002), plaintiffs failed to carry their burden, Robinson v. Seaboard Sys. R.R., Inc., 87 N.C. App. 512, 524, 361 S.E.2d 909, 917 (1987), and I would find also that the *113pattern jury instruction as used by the trial court correctly and completely instructed the jury as to the applicable law. I also dissent as to the majority’s holding that the trial court should have granted plaintiffs’ motion for a new trial. Plaintiffs’ only argument regarding their motion for a new trial is that “the trial court erred as a matter of law in the jury instructions. Therefore, Plaintiffs’ Rule 59 motion should have been granted and a new trial awarded.” Since I would hold that the trial court properly instructed the jury on the legal duty of a landowner as to a minor-lawful visitor injured on its premises, I would affirm the trial court’s denial of plaintiffs’ motion for a new trial.
The majority notes the jury’s question “how is the age of the lawful visitor factored in?” and finds that the jury was “confused.” The trial court had instructed the jury properly as to the determination of defendant’s negligence and instructed the jury on the presumption that plaintiff Chelsea was incapable of contributory negligence because of her age — this is how the age of the lawful visitor factors in. The trial court was also right when it responded to the jury’s question and told the jury, “It is harder than you thought.” This is a hard case. It may seem to be a hardship upon the party injured to be without a remedy; however, this Court is admonished “not to be influenced ... by any motions of hardships[,]” and to “look at hardships in the face rather than break down the rules of law[,]” as hard cases can be “apt to introduce bad law.” In re McDonald’s Will, 219 N.C. 209, 211, 13 S.E.2d 239, 240 (1941).
I would find no error in the trial court’s instructions to the jury in regard to defendant’s duty and affirm the trial court’s denial of plaintiffs’ motion for a new trial. I therefore respectfully concur in part and dissents in part.

. We note that in subsequent cases addressing the standard of care a landowner owes to a minor-invitee, who was injured by an artificial condition of the land, our Courts have not considered the invitee’s age in defining the landowner’s duty. See Phillips v. Grand Union Co., 64 N.C. App. 373, 374-75, 307 S.E.2d 205, 206 (1983); Mitchell v. K.W.D.S., Inc., 26 N.C. App. 409, 410, 412, 216 S.E.2d 408, 410-11, cert. denied, 288 N.C. 242, 217 S.E.2d 665 (1975); Bray v. Great Atlantic & Pac. Tea Co., 3 N.C. App. 547, 549, 165 S.E.2d 346, 348 (1969). Even after Nelson, this Court has not applied an age-based duty based on Hedrick in cases that addressed the standard of care a land-owner owes to minor-lawful visitors. See Thomas v. Weddle, 167 N.C. App. 283, 605 S.E.2d 244 (2004); Royal v. Armstrong, 136 N.C. App. 465, 524 S.E.2d 600, disc. rev. denied, 351 N.C. 474, 543 S.E.2d 495 (2000)).

. See Yates v. J.W. Campbell Electric Corp., 95 N.C. App. 354, 359, 382 S.E.2d 860, 863 (1989) (holding that ‘in North Carolina ... a landowner’s duty of care to a licensee is to refrain from willful or wanton negligence, and from doing any affirmative acts which result in increased danger to the licensee while he is on the premises” but ‘a landowner owes a higher level of care to a young child who is unable to appreciate a potential danger even though he is a licensee.”); Anderson v. Butler, 284 N.C. 723, 729, 202 S.E.2d 585, 589 (1974) (holding that ‘[i]f the owner, while the licensee is upon the premises exercising due care for his own safety, is actively negligent in the management of his property or business, as a result of which the licensee is subjected to increased danger, the owner will be liable for injuries sustained as a result of such *105active or affirmative negligence [,]” but “a higher measure of care is required when a duty is owed to young children” because “common experience tells us that a child may be too young and immature to observe the care necessary to his own preservation, and therefore, when a person comes in contact with such a child, if its youth and immaturity are obvious, he is chargeable with knowledge of that fact and he cannot indulge the presumption that the child will do what is necessary to avoid an impending danger.”)

. McCombs v. City of Asheboro, 6 N.C. App. 234, 170 S.E.2d 169 (1969), the second case cited by defendant in support of its argument, is hot helpful to the analysis of a landowner’s duty as to natural conditions, as it addressed the defendant’s duty and the application of the attractive nuisance doctrine in the context of an injury caused by a manmade artificial condition — a ditch excavated by the defendant for placement of a sewer line.

. I also note that N.C.P.I. 805.69 (2008), CITY OR COUNTY NEGLIGENCE —DEFENSE OF CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE — HANDICAPPED PLAINTIFF, addresses contributory negligence as to a handicapped person. “A person traveling on a [street] [sidewalk] [alley] [bridge] [public way] has a duty to use ordinary care to protect himself from [injury] [damage]. He must use his senses to dis-cover and to avoid such dangerous conditions as would be discovered and avoided by a reasonable person exercising ordinary care for his own safety under the same or similar circumstances. If one or more of a person’s senses is impaired because of blindness, deafness, .or some other handicap, the law requires him to take more care and use more vigilant caution for his own safety on public ways in order to compensate for his handicap. Thus, in order to exercise ordinary care for his own safety, a person who is [blind] [deaf] [(name other handicap)] must exercise that degree of care which a reasonable person with the same or similar handicap would exercise under the same or similar circumstances.” (footnotes omitted). I note that there is no pattern jury instruction stating that the standard of care owed by the city or county is higher based upon the fact that the particular plaintiff is handicapped in some manner which made it more difficult for the plaintiff to perceive or respond to hazards.