## Facts

- Twelve-year-old Austin Hill and friends played touch football on a grass-covered vacant lot at Monticello Road and Williston Way in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
- While running, Austin tripped over an unseen metal pole protruding from the ground, fell, and struck a second metal pole, lacerating his left thigh.
- Austin received emergency treatment; the wound healed but left a permanent scar.
- The lot was owned by National Grid, a public utility; the Hills alleged negligent failure to maintain the property and to address a dangerous artificial condition (protruding metal poles).
- National Grid asserted Austin was a trespasser and that it owed no duty beyond refraining from willful or wanton misconduct.
- The Hills relied on the attractive nuisance doctrine to impose a duty despite trespasser status.

## Issues

1. Whether summary judgment was proper where the plaintiffs produced evidence from which a factfinder could infer the landowner knew or had reason to know children were likely to trespass on the vacant lot.
2. Whether the record presented triable issues under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 339 that the artificial condition posed an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm to trespassing children.
3. Whether questions of duty and foreseeability under the attractive nuisance doctrine were sufficiently fact-dependent to preclude summary judgment.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Rhode Island vacated the Superior Court’s grant of summary judgment for National Grid and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Hills, genuine issues of material fact existed on whether National Grid knew or should have known children were likely to trespass and play on the property.
- The court concluded that the circumstances could support applying the attractive nuisance doctrine and that the first § 339 element (knowledge or reason to know of child trespass) was not negated as a matter of law.
- The court rejected any categorical exemption from attractive nuisance analysis based solely on National Grid’s status as a public utility or absentee owner.
- The court distinguished cases treating certain dangers (e.g., obvious large structures) as non-actionable as a matter of law, reasoning that a concealed or difficult-to-detect hazard in a grassy play area could warrant jury consideration.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is appropriate only when, after viewing the record in the nonmovant’s favor, no genuine issue of material fact exists and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
- Rhode Island applies Restatement (Second) of Torts § 339 for injuries to trespassing children caused by artificial conditions, requiring proof of five elements, including:
  - the possessor knows or has reason to know children are likely to trespass;
  - the possessor knows or has reason to know the condition poses an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm;
  - children, due to youth, do not discover or appreciate the risk;
  - the burden of eliminating the danger is slight compared to the risk; and
  - the possessor fails to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger or protect children.
- A landowner’s knowledge that children are likely to trespass may be shown by circumstantial evidence and reasonable inferences, not solely by proof of actual notice.
- Where reasonable factfinders could differ on foreseeability, constructive knowledge, and the character of the hazard under § 339, those issues generally should not be resolved on summary judgment.

## Conclusion

The court vacated summary judgment because the record permitted competing inferences about whether National Grid had constructive knowledge that children used the vacant lot and whether the protruding metal poles created an unreasonable risk under Restatement § 339, making attractive nuisance and duty questions for a factfinder on remand.


Hill v. National Grid, 11 A.3d 110 (R.I. 2011)