Court Opinion

ID: 9646714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:08:49.673271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:41.016738
License: Public Domain

REEVES, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the result reached in this case because of the facts of this case. The hole was obvious, and the child had played in the same general area on several other occasions. But I do not want my agreement with the result to be construed as an agreement with the statement, “[T]he rules pertaining to the duty owed by a licensor to a licensee are applicable to both adults and children alike. See Schroeder v. Texas & Pacific Ry. Co., 243 S.W.2d 261, 263 (Tex.Civ.App.—Dallas 1951, no writ); Holt v. Fuller Cotton Oil Co., 175 S.W.2d 272, 274 (Tex.Civ.App.—Amarillo 1943, writ ref’d w.o.m.).” The statement and its context imply, as the cases it uses for authority state, that notice sufficient to warn an adult of a dangerous condition is sufficient to warn a minor of the same dangerous condition.
Comment B of RESTATEMENT (SECOND) TORTS § 342 (1965) indicates that adult licensors owe duties to minor licensees that are different than the duties they owe to adult licensees. Whether a dangerous condition is apparent to a minor licensee is a different question than whether the same dangerous condition is apparent to an adult licensee. Id. That is so because of the inability of children to fully *869appreciate the risks associated with particular dangerous conditions. Id. Since children owe duties of care different than those owed by adults, W. Prosser, The Law of Torts, 154-157 (4th ed. 1971), it seems logical that, in turn, adults owe children duties of care different from the duties of care that adults owe to other adults.
The holdings of Sckroeder, Holt, and cases on which they are based,1 do not, I believe, correctly reflect current legal thinking on the duties adult licensors owe to minor licensees.

. Blossom Oil & Cotton v. Poteet, 104 Tex. 230, 136 S.W. 432 (1911); Taylor v. Fort Worth Poultry & Egg, 112 S.W.2d 292 (Tex.Civ.App.—Fort Worth 1937, writ dism’d; and Mendoza v. Texas & P. Ry. Co., 70 S.W.2d 261 (Tex.Civ.App.—Eastland 1934, no writ).