Can A Child Obtain Compensation if They Are Hurt while Trespassing?

Landowners owe certain duties of care to the people they invite onto their property. Conversely, they owe no duties to people who enter without permission or stay after being asked to leave. Young children sometimes don’t understand the concept of boundaries, so it is never a surprise when they wander onto someone’s property uninvited. They might even be drawn onto someone’s land by an attractive nuisance. What happens if your child is injured while trespassing? Can you bring a claim for compensation?

The Law on Attractive Nuisances

Like other states, South Carolina will allow a child to receive compensation in limited situations, even if they were trespassing at the time. You’ll need to show:

1. The landowner knew or had some reason to suspect children were trespassing in the area. Did they see children come onto the property before? Or did someone tell them children trespassed? That might be enough.
2. The condition creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death. This can’t be a minor hazard which only poses a small risk of injury. Instead, the risk is substantial.
3. Your child could not realize the risk involved in trespassing because of their age. The older your child, the more they should realize and appreciate the risk of a hazard.
4. The landowner could have eliminated the danger with little expense or effort. They aren’t obligated to completely redesign their property to protect a child trespasser. But they should take reasonable steps, especially when compared to the severity of the risk.
5. The property owner failed to use reasonable care to protect your child or eliminate the danger. For example, the owner might have made no effort to protect a child, despite realizing a child faced a serious threat of injury.

We sometimes see successful cases where a child trespasses at a construction site and is injured by power tools which are plugged in. The site’s owner could have protected children by cutting power when no one was there or unplugging the tools.

In other situations, a child might be injured by a swimming pool during the winter months. The owner could have protected children by draining the pool or putting a cover over it.

This is a fact-intensive area of law with few “clear cut” rules. An owner is not automatically liable simply because your child was hurt. As mentioned above, they do not have to spend large sums of money to protect a child from coming onto the property. And there is no duty if the owner had no reason to suspect children ever trespassed.

Contact Snyder Heitman LLC Today

If your child was hurt by someone’s property, we can investigate. Our firm wants to know more about the attractive nuisance that drew your child’s attention, as well as how they were hurt. We can then analyze if your family can sustain a legal claim for compensation, and we can begin negotiations with the property owner. Call to meet with a Greenville premises liability lawyer.