Minnesota Premises Liability Lawyers

What is premises liability under Minnesota law?

In Minnesota, premises liability law involves injuries caused by unsafe, hazardous, or poorly maintained property. A property owner has a duty of care that is meant to ensure that they offer reasonably safe conditions for those who enter the property. The law creates certain obligations for those in control of the premises in stores, restaurants, rental properties, parking lots, public spaces, private homes, and more. However, the requirements are not the same for every classification of visitor. Instead, more protection is afforded to some who enter the property than to others. Here is a basic breakdown of how that might apply in Minnesota:

Entrants

Minnesota law combines two categories of visitors that most states separate: invitees and licensees. In Minnesota, both receive the same level of protection and are referred to as “entrants.” Traditionally, invitees are categorized as those on the property of others for business purposes or because they were invited to participate in community or non-profit activities. Their presence on the property is meant to support the owner’s business efforts or to benefit invited participants. Invitees may include shoppers, diners in a restaurant, and hotel guests. Invitees may also include church congregants, alcohol counseling services, and hospitals. Invitees enjoy the highest level of protection from the law.

A licensee would be someone who has the right to be on the property but isn’t there to benefit the owner or due to an invite. The most common example of an invitee is someone who walks through an owner’s property to get to another location, such as someone who slips and falls on a snowy sidewalk (of someone they don’t know) while walking to see a neighbor.

Owners need to actively inspect and maintain the premises, and must fix defects or warn entrants of known dangers and dangers they should reasonably know about promptly.

Trespassers

Trespassers, unsurprisingly, land on the opposite end of the spectrum from entrants. These are people who enter the property without the owner’s permission or knowledge. Still, owners may owe them some very limited duty of care. In Minnesota, the landowner can’t willfully or wantonly harm trespassers, or keep hidden dangers on their property (for example, owners can’t set covert bear traps to catch trespassers without facing possible legal consequences).

There are often exceptions for children who trespass, where the owner must be more cautious. The doctrine of “attractive nuisance” addresses these concerns because it involves objects on property that the owner should reasonably expect would attract children, like trampolines, jungle gyms, or pools. In such cases, the owner owes a stricter standard of care than for other trespassers.