Attractive Nuisance

The attractive nuisance doctrine is an area of tort law that holds a property owner liable for injuries to children that are trespassing. The liability is imposed if the injury to the child is caused by a hazardous object or condition on the land that is likely to attract children. Because children are unable to appreciate the risk created by the object and also the idea of trespassing, a property owner is liable.

So far, the doctrine has successfully been applied to cases where a child has been injured in a situation involving an abandoned car, piles of lumber, mounds of sand, trampolines, and swimming pools. Swimming pools are harder to be held liable for, particularly if they are not visible from the street. While these are common cases of attractive nuisance, the doctrine can be applied to nearly anything on the property.

The Restatement of Torts outlines five conditions that make a landowner liable. They are:

• The place where the tempting or attractive conditions exist is one where the owner knows or is likely to know that children will trespass
• The property knows or has reason to know that the condition poses an unreasonable risk of death or serious injury to children
• The children do not know the risks involved in meddling with the condition and do not discover it until coming into the area made dangerous by the condition
• The utility to the property owner of maintaining the condition or nuisance and the burden of eliminating the danger are slight when compared to the dangers facing children
• The property owner fails to exercise reasonable care in eliminating the danger or somehow protecting the children

Contact a Milwaukee Personal Injury Lawyer

If your child has been injured by some object or condition on a neighbor’s property that fits the description of an attractive nuisance, contact the Milwaukee personal injury lawyers of Habush Habush & Rottier at 1-800-242-2874.