Court Opinion

ID: 9659161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:33:34.203121+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:04.587760
License: Public Domain

PER CURIAM.
As ultimately amended, the complaint here under consideration consisted to two counts, Count 5A and Count 7A. The lower court sustained defendant’s demurrers to each of these two counts, whereupon the plaintiff moved for a non suit with leave to appeal. This motion was granted and the plaintiff thereafter perfected his appeal to this court.
Count 5A avers in substance that the defendant had undertaken as a cub scout leader or den master, to supervise the activities of the plaintiff, nine years of age, and the other members of his cub scout pack at a meeting, called by the defendant as leader of the pack, at his home in Andalusia; that after undertaking the supervision of the activities of plaintiff, the defendant negligently failed to adequately supervise the activities carried on at the meeting on defendant’s premises in that the defendant negligently permitted the members of the cub scout pack to engage in rowdy, boisterous, and unsupervised play in defendant’s yard during said meeting while the plaintiff was under defendant’s supervision and control as such cub scout leader; and as a proximate result of the negligence of the defendant to properly supervise the activities of the plaintiff at said time and place, the plaintiff received personal injuries as a direct result of the defendant’s failure to supervise the activities of the plaintiff and in the course of said unsupervised play the plaintiff’s ankle was *153badly broken when he was caused to fall or be thrown over an old automobile tire located on defendant’s premises, and he was injured. The plaintiff’s injuries are catalogued. The count concluded by averring that plaintiff’s injuries were the proximate result of defendant’s negligent failure to properly supervise the activities carried on at the said meeting after the defendant had undertaken the supervision as aforesaid.
Count 7A asserts that the plaintiff was invited by the defendant to attend the cub pack meeting at defendant’s home, and while on the premises as an invitee he stepped upon or was caused to step upon a tire, all of which facts were known to the defendant, and unknown to the plaintiff, and that as a proximate result of stepping upon the tire, he fell or was caused to fall and as a proximate result he received certain catalogued physical injuries. The count further averred that all of plaintiff’s injuries were the proximate result of the negligence of the defendant in negligently failing to use due care to keep the premises reasonably safe from a concealed, direct, or dangerous condition known to the defendant but not known to the plaintiff, and not made known by the defendant to persons on the premises as invitees, and that the defendant negligently placed or allowed said tire to remain on his premises knowing that any invited guest such as the plaintiff, would likely be caused to step on said tire and be thrown to the ground.
The court sustained the demurrers to Count 5A and 7A on the asserted grounds that, (1) neither count stated a cause of action against the defendant, and (2) that each count failed to allege a duty owed by the defendant to the plaintiff.
A pleading, when assailed by a demurrer, must be construed most strongly against the pleader. Waugaman v. Skyline Country Club, 277 Ala. 495, 172 So.2d 381; Livingston v. Bedford, 284 Ala. 323, 224 So.2d 873.
It is established by our decisions that one on the premises of another as a guest, whether by an implied or a specific invitation, nevertheless occupies the position and status of a licensee, rather than an invitee, insofar as concerns the degree of care owed by the owner of the premises to the social invitee or guest. Morgan v. Kirkpatrick, 276 Ala. 7, 158 So.2d 650; Autry v. Roebuck Park Baptist Church, 285 Ala. 76, 229 So.2d 469; Kent v. Coleman Company, Inc., 285 Ala. 288, 231 So. 2d 321.
The duty owed a licensee by an owner of premises is not to willfully or wantonly injure him, or not to negligently injure the licensee after discovering he was in peril. Autry v. Roebuck Park Baptist Church, supra, and cases cited therein.
We need not advert in considering this case to those situations where a landowner, knowing that small children are likely to be present, maintains an inherently dangerous contrivance thereon which is alluring to children, nor to the doctrines enunciated in the attractive nuisance cases. This for the reason that an old automobile tire on one’s premises is not an inherently dangerous contrivance, nor is it an attractive nuisance. Further, the counts were not framed on either of such theories.
Since the duty owed the plaintiff was not to willfully or wantonly injure him, or to negligently injure him after discovering that the plaintiff was in peril, the counts here being considered, charging negligence only, did not charge any breach of duty owed by the defendant to the plaintiff tinder the averred circumstances, i. e., that the defendant willfully or wantonly injured the plaintiff. The court properly sustained the demurrers to each count.
In brief counsel for plaintiff-appellant argues that the plaintiff should, under the facts, be regarded as a true invitee rather than a licensee because, as counsel contends, the defendant received a benefit from serving as a den master of the scout *154pack. This benefit, according to counsel, arises from the fact that being a scout den master “is a community service and has great moral benefits. It places the Den Master above the ordinary citizen. It separates him apart from the ordinary citizen.”
The fallacy of this argument is that the ordinary invitor-invitee relationship grows out of a business transaction of some nature and the true invitee entered the premises for the mutual benefit of both parties. The benefit flows from one party to the other. The benefit which counsel would assert arises not from the visitor, but from public esteem generated because the den master was willing to perform a community service — a purely pro bono publico act, independent of the membership of the scout pack, and in no way flowing from the membership. We would think that every host would hope to acquire some degree of esteem by being hospitable, and the nature of the hospitality here involved is not different from having any group of people in one’s home.
The distinction between a visitor who is a licensee and one who is an invitee turns largely on the nature of the visit which brings the visitor on the premises rather than the acts of the owner which precedes the visitor’s coming. See Hall v. State, 173 Misc. 903, 19 N.Y.S.2d 20. Under the facts averred the plaintiff’s visit to defendant’s premises was clearly social in nature, and he was on the premises as a licensee.
Affirmed.
LAWSON, MERRILL, COLEMAN, BLOODWORTH and McCALL, JJ., concur.