Peter N Simon

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  PETRON finally acquired an import that suits it needs. Jeremy Wise scored 33 points, and Arwind Santos pulled down a career-high 21 rebounds aside from producing 15 points as the Boosters booked their first win, beating Air21, 115-106, Friday night. “Finally, nakakita kami ng magaling na import,” said Petron coach...

Do I Need Padded Walls?

Sadly, when someone gets injured on a landowner’s property, one of the first thoughts the landowner may have is “I am going to be held liable for this?”  This article is meant to give landowners a brief overview of liability for injuries that occur on their property, and touch on a few of the more common situations in which landowner liability may arise.

Generally

Every landowner owes a duty of care to third persons who enter onto their property.  The basic principle applicable in California is that everyone is responsible for injury to another based on his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property, unless the injured party brought the injury upon him or herself willfully or by want of ordinary care.

In order to be liable, the injured party must show that the landowner had either possession or control of the property and knew or should have known of the risk-creating condition.

If the injured party is able to show the above two conditions, the question of liability depends on several factors. These factors include: whether the landowner acted as a reasonable person under all circumstances, likelihood of injury and foreseeability of harm, probable consequences of such injury, the burden of reducing or avoiding the risk, the location of the land, and the landowner’s degree of control over risk-creating condition.  While each of these factors must be considered, the primary consideration is the foreseeability of risk.  The Court will then apply a balancing test to determine whether the landowner was “reasonable.”

An important qualification of the landowner’s liability is that the standard of care is a duty of “ordinary” care.  Thus, the landowner does not have a duty of extraordinary care and is not an insurer of safety.  So no, you probably do not need padded walls.

Dangerous Conditions

Oftentimes, injuries on one’s property are due to some inherently dangerous condition.  A landowner is required to keep the property in a reasonably safe condition and give warning of latent or concealed perils.  A landowner is generally not liable for injury from a danger that is obvious or should have been observed in the exercise of reasonable care.  However, in some conditions, a warning may still be necessary if it is forseeable that the condition may cause injury even though it is obvious.  Therefore, it is always best to give warning if practicable.