Court Opinion

ID: 9733292
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:01:29.900906+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:40.242472
License: Public Domain

On rehearing. After the foregoing opinion was filed, the defendant’s motion for rehearing was granted.
Blandin, J.
The defendant, in its motion for a rehearing, argues that “The invitation test is not applicable to the circumstances of these actions” and that it does not represent our law or the modern view.
We believe that the importance of the issues involved and the uncertainty and conflicts which appear to exist in the cases and in various textbooks (63 Yale L. J. 144, 145) warrant further elaboration of our opinion. A preliminary matter not stressed at the original hearing, but mentioned upon rehearing, is that the accident happened in that portion of the defendant’s premises used as the nurses’ home. It is neither claimed nor do we perceive that this affects in any manner the legal principles involved.
Considering the defendant’s contentions in reverse order, it appears clear from the authorities that the modern trend favors the use ol the more inclusive invitation test as well as the economic benefit test (2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts, s. 27.12, pp. 1478, 1480). In an article by Prosser, “Business Visitors and Invitees” 26 Minn. L. Rev. 573, he repudiated his earlier view that the economic benefit test, upon which the defendant relies, was exclusive and advocated adoption of the invitation test as well. It has since been authoritatively stated that “the *58great majority of the courts” now accept the invitation test. Prosser on Torts (2d ed.) s. 78, p. 454, 456 (1955); Handleman v. Cox, 39 N. J. 95, 109.
Perhaps the most significant support for the invitation test appears in Restatement (Second), Torts, s. 332 (Tentative draft No. 5, 1960). This authority bluntly states that restricting the class of invitees to only those who meet the economic benefit test is “out of line with the holdings of the great majority of the cases which have considered the question.” Id., s. 332, p. 59. It appears that this authority also has modified its former stand as stated in Restatement, Torts, s. 332.
The tentative draft defines an invitee as follows: “(1) An invitee is either a public invitee or a business visitor. (2) A public invitee is a person who is invited to enter or remain on land as a member of the public for a purpose for which the land is held open to the public. (3) A business visitor is a person who is invited to enter or remain on land for a purpose directly or indirectly connected with business dealings with the possessor of the land.” The authority then goes on to explain that the exclusive economic benefit test “originated with the writer of a forgotten treatise” in 1878, and that it does not represent either the better or the modern view. Id., pp. 59-60.
In summary upon this phase of the matter, we hold that in addition to the economic benefit test the invitation test as established in our former opinion and as set forth in terse form in the Restatement (Second), Torts, s. 332(2) (Tentative draft No. 5 (I960)), supra, is also the law in this state. In the case before us, it could be found that the plaintiff entered the hospital’s premises, as a member of the public, in response to a public invitation issued by the District Nursing Association under express or implied authorization by the hospital. She was injured upon a part of the premises over which the hospital retained control and which it could reasonably be found to have expected her to use. The fact that it derived no economic benefit from the transaction should not relieve it from a duty to discover and remedy any unreasonable risks of injury arising out of the invited use. See Restatement (Second), Torts, s. 359, comment g (Tentative draft No. 5 (1960)); Prosser, supra; 26 Minn. L. Rev. 573, 595, 602. The evidence warranted submission to the jury of the issue of the plaintiffs’ status and its finding is sustainable.
Insofar as Hashim v. Chimiklis, 91 N. H. 456; Sandwell v. *59Hospital, 92 N. H. 41, and the line of cases following them may be thought to limit the rule exclusively to the economic benefit test, they are overruled.
We do not adopt the broader rule merely because it represents a “modern trend.” We follow it because we believe it best expresses the principles of justice and reasonableness upon which our law of torts- is founded. Hobbs v. Company, 75 N. H. 73, 80-81.
In conclusion, we adhere to the principles and the holding of our original opinion. The order is

Former result affirmed.

All concurred.
September 30, 1963.