December 2014

Most states demand that businesses, regardless of size, take every reasonable action to keep their premises safe for employees and visitors. The definition of visitors is fairly loose. Basically, it is anyone not employed by the business and covered by its workmen’s compensation insurance policy.

This means that clients, customers, delivery persons, repair persons, outside maintenance contractors and anyone who comes to the business premises needs protection from foreseeable dangers.

There are different types of people who come into a business and each has a different level of required care for its class of visitors.

Invitee

This is a person whose invitation is explicit (by appointment, for example) or implicit (a customer looks at the goods and services for sale in a shop). A business owner’s duty to an invitee is to exercise ordinary care and make the property generally safe without any dangerous conditions.

Licensee

A licensee in not an invitee or trespasser. An example of a licensee is a party who enters the premises for their own convenience or gratification. Think of a person ducking into your entryway to avoid the rain. The duty of care is far less than for an invitee, and the business is only liable to a licensee for willful and malicious harm.

Trespasser

This group of people enter the premises lacking an implicit or explicit invitation. They come on the business property for their own enjoyment or benefit. The only duty of a business owner is a negative one – the business cannot build any mantraps the willfully and maliciously causes a trespasser harm. Many states have an exception to this limited responsibility; if the business anticipates, suspects or knows of the presence of a trespasser it must exercise ordinary care and avoid inflicting injury on a trespasser through any kind of active negligence.

Common Workplace Visitor’s Injuries

Slip and Fall Accidents

These are the largest cause of visitor injuries. Injuries happen when a visitor trips, slips or falls and suffer injuries. These accidents often stem from things such as uneven floorboards, electrical extension cords crossing aisles or doorways, spills or liquids on the floor, and poorly installed carpet or carpeting that has tears or rips.

Negligent Security

It is normal that businesses have a duty to their invitees to make sure they are safe from foreseeable. A business is liable for the criminal acts of a non-employee when the business fails to keep the premises safe from criminal activity. Usually claims of negligent security stem from places such as:

• Hotels
• Motels
• Parking garages
• Apartment complexes

Businesses in high-crime areas (a parking garage in such an area needs adequate lighting, video cameras and warning signs that video surveillance is ongoing, and other security measure as needed.

Attractive Nuisance

This is a legal doctrine that applied mostly to children, even if they are trespassers. Hotels with outdoor pools need adequate fencing, a pool cover, locks and lighting, as the pool is attractive for kids to try to use after trespassing.

Defective Property Conditions

Businesses are often liable for dangerous or defective conditions. These include faulty elevators, faulty escalators, crumbling stairways and more.

Speak with your business insurance advisor about these risks and how to protect yourself, your business and employees from legal liability for them.

You see them all the time, those ugly floor signs warning folks about wet floors from floor washing or cleaning up spills. So do you need those wet signs – yes you do! A business has a responsibility to make sure that their environment is safe for both employees and visitors. But, businesses have many other risks that need their attention as well.

There are three types of injuries that account for more than ninety percent of all injuries in a places of business. Most of them are preventable and failure to take common sense steps to protect everyone on your business premises leads to insurance claims and lawsuits. The three most common types of business place injuries relate to:

• Slip and Fall Accidents
• Negligent Security
• Attractive Nuisance

Slip and Fall Accidents

Most businesses report that their majority of business place injuries are slip and fall accidents. This is why it is important that wet floors have caution signs warning people that floors are wet. There is no need that the signs be ugly though.

Often, slip and fall accidents occur outside the business’s facility. Cracks and broken concrete, uneven pavement, parking lot potholes all need prompt repair. Until repairs can happen, cones or other means of warning people help people avoid being injured by the hazard.

Negligent Security

Every business has to take ordinary precautions to protect visitors on their premises from criminal attack. When a visitor on premises is subject to a third-party theft, or physical harm from criminal activity. Types of businesses that are normally involved in claims about negligent security includes:

• Arenas and Stadiums
• Motels
• Parking Lots
• Hotels
• Apartment buildings

Businesses in high-crime areas are especially vulnerable to legal liability for negligent security. All businesses must take proper commonsense security measures for people on their premises. These include:

• Security lights
• Video cameras
• Warning signs
• Security guards for businesses in high-crime areas
• Other measures as needed, such as emergency call and sirens in parking lots.

Attractive Nuisance

This is a legal doctrine that protects children, even if they trespass, who suffer injuries due to an attractive nuisance.

The roots of the attractive nuisance doctrine dates to the age of railroads. A six year-old boy suffered a crushed foot while climbing on a railroad turntable in 1873. The United States Supreme Court found that the railroad, the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad was liable for the boy’s injury (Henry Stout). The Supreme Court found for Stout ruling that the temptation to children was an implicit invitation to come on the premises. Once the child status’ changed from trespasser to invitee, the railroad had to take actions to prevent the child from getting to the turntable.

• The top-ten nuisances are:
• Construction sites
• Swimming Pools
• High-voltage power lines
• Water hazards caused by rain or abandoned quarries
• Refrigerators and freezers
• Abandoned cars and unlocked parked cars
• Working farms
• Excavation trenches, sewer drains, wells, drainage ditches, quarries, holding tanks and open pits.
• Trampolines, jungle gyms, Play sets, tree houses, and skateboard ramps
• Railroads

Some of the above reasons have mixed results when brought to court, other appear as settled law.

However, the best way to avoid legal liability for an attractive nuisance is to take the correct measures to prevent a child to get access to the hazard.

Schedule an appointment with your business insurance advisor to make sure you have the correct liability insurance, need an umbrella policy, and if he or she can give you a liability check list for you to do a self-audit for your business.