## Facts

- John E. Bigan operated a coal strip-mining site containing large cuts or trenches; one cut was filled with water about 8–10 feet deep with embankments about 16–18 feet high.
- Joseph F. Yania, an adult strip-mine operator, and a companion visited Bigan’s property to discuss a business matter.
- Bigan asked for help starting a pump located in the water-filled cut; Bigan and the companion went down into the cut while Yania remained at the top of an embankment.
- Yania jumped from the embankment into the water and drowned.
- The decedent’s widow brought wrongful death and survival actions alleging Bigan (1) negligently “urged, enticed, taunted, and inveigled” Yania to jump, (2) breached duties owed to a business invitee by failing to make the premises safe or warn of danger, and (3) negligently failed to assist or rescue Yania after he entered the water.

## Issues

1. Whether verbal urging or taunting that leads a competent adult to perform an obviously dangerous act can constitute actionable negligence.
2. Whether a land possessor breaches a duty to a business invitee by failing to warn of or remedy an open and obvious hazardous condition.
3. Whether a defendant has an affirmative legal duty to rescue or assist a person who voluntarily enters peril, absent a special relationship or defendant-created peril.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed dismissal of the complaint on demurrer.
- The court held that the alleged verbal encouragement did not amount to negligence where an adult of normal capacity voluntarily undertook an obviously dangerous jump.
- The court held that the land possessor owed no duty to warn of or protect against the water-filled cut because the condition and risk were open and obvious and as apparent to Yania as to Bigan.
- The court held there was no legal duty to rescue on these facts because Yania voluntarily placed himself in danger and Bigan did not create the peril by an affirmative wrongful act or stand in a relationship imposing a duty to act.

## Legal Principles

- Negligence liability generally does not attach to “words alone” that encourage a competent adult to undertake an obvious risk where the adult’s voluntary act is the immediate cause of harm.
- A possessor of land is not liable to an invitee for failing to warn of or remedy dangers that are open and obvious and equally apparent to the invitee.
- Absent a special relationship, statutory obligation, or defendant-created peril, there is no general common-law duty to rescue a person from danger, including danger the person voluntarily undertakes.

## Conclusion

The court rejected liability under theories of enticement, premises liability, and failure to rescue, concluding that a competent adult’s voluntary entry into an obvious danger breaks the negligence claim, that open and obvious hazards do not require warning to invitees, and that nonfeasance creates no duty to rescue without a recognized duty-triggering relationship or creation of the peril.


Yania v. Bigan, 155 A.2d 343 (Pa. 1959)