Court Opinion

ID: 9540791
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:19:52.856816+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:58.075620
License: Public Domain

*766Hennessey, C.J.
(concurring). I agree with the result reached by Justices Wilkins, Liacos, and Abrams. I also agree with their reasoning in all but one respect, as follows. The opinion lists and briefly describes several cases in which we have rejected the status of a party to the tort (e.g., a spouse, a charity, a government entity) as a controlling element in determining liability for negligence. Also listed is Schofield v. Merrill, 386 Mass. 244 (1982), in which a majority of this court concluded that an adult trespasser, not known to be in peril, was barred from recovering in a negligence claim against the landowner. The implication is that the result in Schofield is inconsistent (it is cited as “contra”) with the “status” cases. Not so. I suppose that in a dictionary sense we are indicating a status when we speak of a trespasser. More significantly, we are referring to conduct. “Trespasser” is a label for a person who has unlawfully entered the land of another. I joined a majority of this court in Schofield in determining that such a wrongdoer, whether burglar or mere interloper, can prevail only upon a showing of wilful, wanton, or reckless conduct of the defendant landowner. I suggest that the Schofield result is sound policy, and also is consistent with the reasoning that the status of a party should not be a controlling element in determining liability for negligence.