Court Opinion

ID: 9535785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:44:00.001697+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:20.003957
License: Public Domain

Liacos, J.
(dissenting, with whom Wilkins and Abrams, JJ., join). Under our present case law, a trespasser, as an entrant without consent or invitation, is entitled to no greater duty of care than that the landowner refrain from wilful and reckless disregard for the entrant’s safety. See Sweeny v. Old Colony & Newport R.R., 10 Allen 368, 372 (1865); Burke v. Toothaker, 1 Mass. App. Ct. 234, 238 (1973); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 333 & Comment b (1965). The court reaffirms this principle today. This court has recognized, however, two exceptions to the general landowner’s immunity arising from an entrant’s trespasser status, neither of which benefits this plaintiff. In Pridgen v. Boston Hous. Auth., 364 Mass. 696 (1974), the court ruled that “where a trespasser is in a position of peril. . . and his presence becomes known, the owner then has a duty to use reasonable care . . . in the circumstances.” Id. at 707. The decision in Soule v. Massachusetts Elec. Co., 378 Mass. 177 (1979), announced a common law exception to a landowner’s immunity vis-a-vis certain foreseeable child trespassers, in conformity with the statutory negligence standard imposed by G. L. c. 231, § 85Q.1 Cf. Owen v. Meserve, 381 *255Mass. 273, 274-275 (1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1082 (1981).
In Soule we recognized the Legislature’s enactment of G. L. c. 231, § 85Q, as an effort to soften the “Draconian” common law doctrine concerning child trespassers. Soule, supra at 180. We also recognized that “the action of the Legislature in passing § 85Q was not meant to, and does not, foreclose us from announcing compatible changes in the common law of torts, consistent with the trend of our decisions in Mounsey v. Ellard, 363 Mass. 693 (1973), Pridgen v. Boston Hous. Auth., 364 Mass. 696 (1974), and Poirier v. Plymouth, 374 Mass. 206, 221-228 (1978).” Soule, supra at 181-182. I perceive no persuasive reason offered by the court’s opinion today to decline to extend the Soule principles to a foreseeable adult trespasser. To do so would not invoke the uncertainties the court describes, but would be a natural — and limited — extension not only of recent judicial case law but also of legislative policy.
In Mounsey v. Ellard, 363 Mass. 693 (1973), this court abandoned the common law categories of invitee and licensee as determinants of premises liability. We held in Moun-sey that Massachusetts landowners could not claim immunity from negligence liability based simply on the entrant’s licensee status. Id. at 703, 706. Ruling that a single duty of due care applied to all lawful entrants, the court concluded that attempts to fashion judicial refinements of status had produced only confusing and often inconsistent results. However, the Mounsey court limited applicability of the new negligence standard to lawful visitors. Justice Kaplan, concurring, took issue with the position of the court as to the *256trespasser doctrine. His concurrence capsules the fundamental rationale for abandoning all status classifications: retaining the category of trespasser “tends to perpetuate . . . the kind of tradition-bound and mistaken analysis that . . . the court was aiming to correct. For it is sometimes just as hard to distinguish trespassers from licensees or invitees ... . The very effort at dry classification . . . puts the emphasis at the wrong places.” Id. at 717-718. In my view, the court’s approach today continues this process of putting the “emphasis at the wrong places,” albeit in a somewhat different sense. The judicially created doctrine insulating landowners from liability utilized a concept of “status” to bar recovery for all trespassers, in a way that departs from the “fundamental concept that a man is liable for injuries caused by his carelessness,” Rowland v. Christian, 69 Cal. 2d 108,113 (1968). It has been said that such a doctrine is rooted in the feudal dominance of the landowning class. 2 F. Harper & F. James, Torts § 27.1, at 1432 (1956). See also Mounsey, supra at 695, 706. The common law doctrine has been viewed not only as resting on ouimoded premises, but also as one that is essentially unworkable. The Supreme Court of Colorado, for instance, concluded that the status system creates confusion and prevents the jury from applying changing community standards to a landowner’s duties. Mile High Fence Co. v. Raddvich, 175 Colo. 537, 542 (1971). Accord, Basso v. Miller, 40 N.Y.2d 233, 240-241 (1976).
The most offensive aspect of the status rules is the injustice inherent in the harshness of summary disposition against a plaintiff as a matter of law. See, e.g., Mounsey, supra at 707 (allocating risks of injury too complex to be decided exclusively by entrants’ status); Webb v. City of Sitka, 561 P.2d 731, 732-733 (Alas. 1977) (reversing summary judgment for defendant which had been based on claimant’s status as licensee); Rowland v. Christian, supra at 119 (perpetuating wholesale immunities under common law system can lead only to injustice); Smith v. Arbaugh’s Restaurant, Inc., 469 F.2d 97, 103-104 (D.C. Cir. 1972), *257cert. denied, 412 U.S. 939 (1973) (harshness results because status rules remove from jury the determination of landowner liability); Scurti v. City of New York, 40 N.Y.2d 433, 440 (1976) (giving conclusive effect to status is “purest legal fiction” and unrealistic); Mariorenzi v. Joseph DiPonte, Inc., 114 R.I. 294, 300 (1975) (under common law five year old decedent would be nonsuited as trespasser); Antoniewicz v. Reszczynski, 70 Wis. 2d 836, 839-840 (1975) (upholding trial judge who declared preclusive status rule archaic and irrational).
The entry of this plaintiff on the defendants’ land and the plaintiffs use, without consent, of the defendants’ quarry was, according to the facts alleged and set out in the court’s opinion, entirely foreseeable. Even if a court retained the “status” doctrine in part, such a plaintiff would stand in a position entirely different from that of an outlaw or unforeseen trespasser. Even under the moderate position taken by the Restatement (Second) of Torts, this is a case for a jury. While the Restatement retains the “status” concept (§ 333), § 335 provides, where a possessor of property “knows, or from facts within his knowledge should know, that trespassers constantly intrude upon a limited area of the land, [he] is subject to liability for bodily harm caused to them by an artificial condition on the land, if (a) the condition (i) is one which the possessor has created or maintains and (ii) is, to his knowledge, likely to cause death or seriously [sic] bodily harm to such trespassers and (iii) is of such a nature that he has reason to believe that such trespassers will not discover it, and (b) the possessor has failed to exercise reasonable care to warn such trespassers of the condition and the risk involved.” See also Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 334, 336-338 (1965).
It would be ¿ modest step by this court to adopt this position; it also would be consistent with the standard recognized in Mounsey, supra, as fleshed out by incorporation of the criteria enunciated in Soule, supra at 184, and by the language of G. L. c. 231, § 85Q. Despite the court’s protestations, a ruling that a “reasonable care” standard includes *258the foreseeability of the entrant’s presence, as well as the “burden of undertaking precautions . . . compared to the magnitude of the risk involved,” Soule, supra, would invoke no great departure from our prior law.
The Legislature, as well as this court, has seen fit to delegate to the jury the interpretation of a landowner’s negligence standard in G. L. c. 231, § 85Q. The jury ought to be able to translate to adult trespassers the statutory criteria applicable to children. In a case such as this the standards found in § 85Q which are particularly relevant are whether “(a) the place where the condition exists is one upon which the land owner knows or has reason to know that [persons] are likely to trespass ...(d) the utility to the land owner of maintaining the condition and the burden of eliminating the danger are slight as compared with the risk to [persons] involved.” G. L. c. 231, § 85Q. I have little doubt that a jury could receive proper guidance from such a standard.
It should be clear that substitution of a general negligence standard would not furnish unwarranted protection to wrongdoers. Restatement (Second) of Torts, Comment b to § 333 (1965), recognizes that the common law rule itself bestowed immunity from liability on the possessor based on his privilege as a possessor of land and not on the fact that the trespasser, as such, is a wrongdoer. As is manifest from the cases cited, shifting to a negligence analysis would permit the jury to consider as a matter of fact the innocence or malevolence of the entry. The negligence approach simply makes the foreseeability of the trespass and the risk of harm a part of the jury’s determination of what conduct is reasonable in the circumstances, rather than a matter of law for the court.
Schofield’s appeal presents the “concrete fact situation” of an adult trespasser, and thus raises the question which the Soule court deferred, Soule, supra at 186. In Soule the court, reiterating the Mounsey position on trespassers, pointed to a qualitative difference between a child trespasser and a burglar. On the record here, it is not difficult to see a substantive difference between an adult trespasser and *259a burglar. Although the plaintiff violated the landowners’ territorial rights, he had no intention of harming the defendants or their property, as would a burglar. As one court has noted, a “trespasser ... is not ipso facto an outlaw.” Antoniewicz v. Reszczynski, 70 Wis. 2d at 843. Moreover, as noted earlier, the policy underlying the status doctrine is not one of preventing wrongdoers from unjust recovery. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 333, Comment b (1965). Status classifications evolved simply to protect the privilege of land ownership. Informed commentators have repeatedly insisted that a landowner’s immunity bespeaks an outdated and harsh notion that free use of property has greater worth than human safety. See 2 F. Harper & F. James, Torts § 27.3, at 1438-1439 (1956); W. Prosser, Torts § 62, at 398-399 (4th ed. 1971). As already noted, I believe the application to adult trespassers of the standards set forth in G. L. c. 231, § 85Q, would strike a proper balance of the respective interests involved. I dissent.

 General Laws c. 231, § 85Q, inserted by St. 1977, c. 259, provides: “Any person who maintains an artificial condition upon his own land shall be liable for physical harm to children trespassing thereon if (a) the place where the condition exists is one upon which the land owner knows or has reason to know that children are likely to trespass, (b) the condition *255is one of which the land owner knows or has reason to know and which he realizes or should realize will involve an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm to such children, (c) the children because of their youth do not discover the condition or realize the risk involved in intermeddling with it or in coming within the area made dangerous by it, (d) the utility to the land owner of maintaining the condition and the burden of eliminating the danger are slight as compared with the risk to children involved, and (e) the land owner fails to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger or otherwise to protect the children.”