This blog focuses on business litigation and related topics. To the extent businesses are often landowners concerned with liability based on real estate they own, the following opinion is notable.
In Butler v. Newark Country Club, read opinion here , the Delaware Supreme Court very recently issued an opinion of importance to landowners who might be subject to claims from children who trespass and are then injured on that property. This decision involved an 8 year old who drowned when thin ice gave way on an irrigation pond at a country club where the unfortunate youngster was trespassing. Here is the money quote from the Supreme Court’s affirmance of the Superior Court:
The Superior Court held that [Defendant] NCC owed no duty to protect Jeremiah from falling through the ice on its irrigation pond because the pond was not an artificial condition within the meaning of the attractive nuisance doctrine and because it was a danger that children should reasonably understand.