Premises liability is one of the areas of personal injury law where attorneys make the most money. They love to file a lawsuit whenever something bad happens on another person’s property. Whether it’s a home, a business or something in-between, premises liability doctrine lays out when a person may be held responsible for injuries to people who come onto their land. With this in mind, many property owners have decided that the right move is to get as much insurance as they can just to be safe.
Take, for instance, the people who get ranch insurance to protect them from potential claims. When a person owns a ranch, he or she may have various types of premises liability. For people who are just house guests invited over, the duty is only to warn those individuals of any known defects or dangers. For people who come to the ranch to conduct business, however, there is a higher duty. The duty toward them is to cure any dangers and defects that are known to the property owner. Because a ranch owner may have various types of people coming by during a given day, it is often smart to have insurance.
Some people even worry about the potential liability that comes when a non-invited person comes onto their property. The general rule is that a person who trespasses onto a property has no claim unless the homeowner has acted intentionally to cause harm. However, the rules can change when it is a small child who is trespassing on the land. Property owners who have things on their property that would likely attract a child can be held responsible if precautions aren’t taken to keep children out of the area. Beyond that, if one is operating a property that doubles as a business, then people coming onto the property may not be trespassing at all. They may be coming there for business purposes. The difficulty in sorting out these categories underscores why insurance is so important for many property owners today.
