Safety At Home: Your Responsibilities As A Resident

One of the things we take for granted when we return home after a hard day of work is that we’re in a place of safety and control. This, after all, is our home. It’s where we eat, sleep, live and be with people we care about when we’re not working, it’s our place. But one of the things we frequently forget about is that because it is our place, and we are considered the resident of the space, this means we also have a responsibility to the people that come into that space to ensure their safety and well-being, not just our own.

This responsibility is a legal one, and when we violate it, we can be charged with premises liability. If you don’t know what this is, you should keep reading, because it has very real legal and financial consequences.

Your Safety Obligation

Whether you are the actual owner of the property, or someone who is renting, depending on your living situation, it is up to you to ensure that the immediate surroundings of your property are safe for other people. For example, while it certainly doesn’t apply here in hot, sunny Florida, many snowbirds from Canada can attest to the fact that, as homeowners, when winter arrives, many Canadians have a legal obligation to clear the snow from the sidewalk of their home. If they do NOT do this, and someone is injured on their property as a result of the snow or ice they’ve left unattended immediately outside their home, that injured party has the legal right to sue the homeowner.

Clearly, this is not an issue for Florida homeowners, as we don’t get snow and ice in front of our sidewalks. However, less extreme environmental hazards aside, that same legal obligation remains. Even if you don’t own a home, if you rent and live in one, or are the actual resident and home owner, what goes on just outside the walls of your actual house are your legal responsibility. And if an injury to someone else occurs as a result of something that could have been avoided on your part, you may be guilty of negligence, and possibly sued for it.

The People On Your Property

People may arrive on your property for many different reasons. Some, such as the postal service, are there on official business, delivering your mail. Others, such as social guests, are people who have been directly invited to enter your property, and still others are merely passing through, like pedestrians that are walking their dogs past your home.

These different types of visitors to your property are afforded certain legal rights in terms of the amount of safety they are entitled while on your property. But that legal protection varies depending on the nature of the visit.

Invitees

Even though there is the word “invite” in the phrase, this doesn’t always mean that the person has been formally invited. An invitee may be either a public invitee or a business invitee. A public invitee means that these are strangers that are invited to publicly enter your property for a specific reason. In normal, commercial respects, this means customers entering a store, but if you are conducting a garage sale, or your children open a lemonade stand in front of your home, anyone that approaches for the express purposes of browsing goods or buying lemonade is a public invitee.

Business invitees are people that are there to perform a professional, working responsibility of which you approve. The person that comes up to your home to deliver your mail is a perfect example of a business invitee. You don’t want your postal carrier to phone you up every day asking for permission to come up and give you your mail.

Licensee By Invitation

These are people that you specifically invite to your property for social purposes. Friends, family and the children of the attendants all fall under social guests.

Trespassers & Uninvited Licensees

People that come to your property without invitation, or loiter there without your consent fall under this category, and they have very different—and diminished—legal protection compared to the others.

Keeping Things Safe

When you do things like repair your car and leave motor oil on the driveway, or even sidewalk, you may be responsible for injuries that other people contract if you don’t clean that mess. If you see a tree in your yard with a large, dangling branch, and do nothing, should that tree branch fall and injure someone, you are likely to be liable. And if you have an animal, such as a dog, that you know is aggressive, but you leave it unleashed, and allow it to freely roam your front yard and bite people, this is definitely a case where you may be subject to a lawsuit.

On the other hand, if you’ve ever been injured on someone else’s property as a result of actions similar to the ones described, you may have a case for court. All Injuries Law Firm specializes in making sure people who are injured get the compensation they deserve. Contact us to see what we can do for you.