Facts
- C.E. Bowman owned a vacant, sloping lot in San Francisco.
- In grading a nearby street, the City of San Francisco built an embankment that interfered with natural surface-water flow from Bowman’s lot.
- During the rainy season, water collected on the lot and formed a pond.
- Neighborhood children, without Bowman’s permission, regularly entered the lot and played on or near the pond.
- Bowman at least once drove children away from the property, but he did not fence the lot or place guards or barriers around the pond.
- Henry Peters’s 11-year-old son entered Bowman’s lot without invitation or license and drowned in the pond.
- Peters sued Bowman for damages for the child’s death, claiming Bowman was negligent in allowing the pond to remain unguarded and accessible to children.
- The case was tried to a jury, which returned a verdict for Bowman; judgment was entered for Bowman, and the trial court denied Peters’s motion for a new trial.
- Peters appealed from the judgment and from the order denying a new trial, arguing that the “turntable cases” rule (attractive-nuisance theory) should impose liability because children were foreseeably drawn to the pond and exposed to danger.
Issues
- Whether the owner of a vacant lot owes a duty to protect trespassing children from drowning in a pond that forms on the land during the rainy season due to a city-built embankment.
- Whether an ordinary pond on private property can be treated like the dangerous instrumentalities in the “turntable cases,” such that the landowner must take steps to prevent injury to child trespassers.
Decision
- The California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment for Bowman and affirmed the order denying a new trial.
- The court treated the child as a trespasser and applied the general rule that a landowner has no duty to keep premises safe for trespassers.
- The court held Bowman had no duty to prevent the accumulation of rainwater on the lot or to fence or guard the lot to prevent children from trespassing and encountering the pond.
- The court declined to extend the “turntable cases” to an ordinary body of water, refusing to impose attractive-nuisance liability for a pond.
Legal Principles
- A landowner generally owes no duty of ordinary care to make land safe for trespassers.
- The owner of a vacant lot is not required to drain or prevent seasonal rainwater accumulation, or to fence or guard the property, to protect children who enter as trespassers.
- The attractive-nuisance/turntable doctrine is limited and does not apply merely because a common condition (such as a pond) is tempting to children.
- Foreseeability that children may trespass and play near a common water hazard, without more, does not create an affirmative duty to install barriers or constant supervision for the benefit of trespassing children.
Conclusion
The court held Bowman was not liable for the drowning because the child was trespassing, Bowman had no duty to make the premises safe or to fence or guard against child trespassers, and an ordinary pond formed by seasonal water accumulation was not treated as an attractive nuisance under the “turntable cases.”