We look at Premises Liability and what it means for both commercial and residential landowners. We give you some tips and examples of how to avoid litigation in a Premises Liability case.
Premises Liability is defined as the liability a landowner is responsible for when issues arise on the owner’s property. Usually this tort comes into play when discussing hazardous conditions (slips, trips, and falls scenarios) on the premises of the landowners property. This can also come into effect with fights, trespassing, and in some cases, where negligence is involved. While this tort is fairly straight forward in the liability of damages, its complex nature can be the source of many cases.
Premises Liability involves both residential and commercial properties. Whether you’re the owner of a residential property or a commercial property, there are going to be people out there who want to sue you. And believe me in California they’ll find a reason to do it. Don’t assume that just because you don’t live there or aren’t working there that you’re not going to have liability if something happens and someone wants to sue you. A homeowner, if they aren’t living there and has a tenant and that tenant has a dog, you’re going to be responsible for that tenant. It’s all the same concept whether it’s commercial or residential that you have a duty as owner or manager of that property to take steps to keep your property reasonably safe.
What does that mean? It means whatever a jury is willing to say it means. You must be very careful and diligent about managing your property, inspecting your property. So of the things you can do to help yourself is to be active and to be proactive. Go to your property. A lot of residential and commercial landlords think that because they have a tenant that they don’t have to inspect or that they shouldn’t inspect but I advise the exact opposite. If you’re not there, you need to be inspecting more often. You don’t know what that tenant is doing therefore you have to be sure that you’re there somewhat regularly.
A perfect example of this would be recently in San Diego there was an owner of a property who had his house completely destroyed because his tenant was making bombs on the property. Is this legal? Absolutely! For several reasons but primarily because he was not managing his property and he was allowing something extremely dangerous to take place on his property and if someone had gotten hurt, he would have been responsible. Unfortunately, it happens all the time.
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