Court Opinion

ID: 9695129
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:08:52.937002+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:08.896144
License: Public Domain

BERGER, Justice,
dissenting.
Although I did not dissent from Berns I, after reconsideration of the issues in light of the reargument, I am convinced that the premises guest statute has no application here. This case is about a car accident. From the record, it appears that Doan backed out of her driveway without looking to see if the path was clear, and drove into Berns’ car, which was temporarily stopped in Doan’s driveway. The jury should decide whether Doan was negligent, under all the circumstances (including the fact that she was in her own driveway when she hit Berns), and the extent of any damages.
The premises guest statute was intended to protect homeowners and farmers from potential liability to trespassers and guests who are injured as a result of some condition on the property — a person who trips on a pothole, a partygoer who is hit by a falling outdoor light, or a trespasser who falls through rotten floorboards in a barn. Under the statute, if a landowner maintains a business on his property, then the landowner must exercise ordinary care and provide a safe environment for his business invitees. If a landowner does not open his property to the public, however, the landowner owes no duty to maintain the safety of the premises for the benefit of guests or trespassers.
This case does not present a claim against a landowner; it is a claim against a motorist for injuries caused by the motorist’s operation of her automobile. Our analysis in Porter v. Delmarva Power & Light Co.1, is instructive. In Porter, a child was injured while climbing an electric pole in a corn field. The pole was located on an easement held by the City of Dover and Delmarva Power Company. The trial court held that Dover and Delmarva Power were “occupiers” of the premises for *513purposes of the premises guest statute. This Court reversed, holding that the focus should be on the instrumentality that caused the injury, not the land it was sitting on:
In focusing on the nature of the underlying farm premises and not on the use of the easement, the Superior Court erred. The premises/function distinction which the statute ... reflects was inserted to limit the class of property owners who could claim the protection of the statute. Moreover, since it is the pole, not the farm land under it, which is the instrumentality claimed to have caused injury, the underlying rationale of the statute, limiting the liability of residential and farm occupiers, is not served by seeking to extend its protection to industrial or commercial occupiers. It need hardly be noted that the hazards which attend industrial and commercial activities ... implicate liability considerations different from those of farm and residential use. We conclude, therefore, that under the circumstances of their actual use of the easement, Dover and Delmarva may not be deemed occupiers of farm premises.
Applying that same reasoning here, the hazards that attend the operation of automobiles implicate liability considerations different from those of farm and residential use. Indeed, the operation of automobiles is so inherently dangerous that our General Assembly requires all automobiles to be insured, in an effort to provide full compensation for those who are injured. Doan was driving on her driveway without paying adequate attention to the road. Her automobile, not her premises, was the instrumentality that caused the injury.
The premises guest statute “is in derogation of the common law and ... must be strictly construed against the party for whose benefit the law was passed.” 2 As the majority acknowledges, under the common law “rule of necessity,” a motorist may travel over private property if the highway is obstructed. Under those circumstances, the motorist is not a trespasser. The majority posits that the motorist becomes a licensee, and that a licensee is a “guest without payment.”
I disagree. A motorist who uses a driveway to turn around is a public invitee. Every member of the driving public has turned around in someone’s driveway— many times. We see a driveway as a safe place to pull off the road and await a break in traffic that will allow us to change direction. As landowners, we expect our driveways to be used in this fashion, and those who object to this practice erect gates over their driveways. Under this analysis, it does not matter whether Berns had other choices than to use Doan’s driveway to turn around. Her limited use of Doan’s driveway (both in time and distance) qualified Berns as a public invitee, not subject to the premises guest statute.3
This result follows from a strict construction of the premises guest statute, and creates no hazards for landowners. The basis for liability here is the activity of the landowner — negligent driving — not the landowner’s failure to maintain safe premises.

. 547 A.2d 124, 127 (Del.1988) (Emphasis added.).

. Id. at 128.

. Depending on the circumstances, the jury might have to decide whether a motorist went beyond the “invitation” to use the driveway where, for example, the motorist drives the length of a mile-long driveway, looking for a more convenient turn around.