Occupier’s Liability in Law of Torts
Author : SHEETAL MAGGON
Introduction
Before understanding the concept of occupier’s liability, it is important to understand who’s an occupier. A person who lives in any property or premises, either legally as a tenant or owner of the land, or illegally as a squatter is known as an occupier. In other words, it can be said that these are the owners or tenants of the premises, those who are in control of the premises. What is premise? According to Section 1 (3) (a) of the occupier’s liability act, 1957 premises can be defined as any person having occupation or control of any ‘fixed or movable structure, including any vessel, vehicle and aircraft.’ An occupier of any premises or of other structures like cars, ships, aeroplanes or lifts owes an obligation to the people entering the premises for their safety. In the case of Wheat v. Lacon & Co. Ltd, the manager of a pub was given the right to rent out rooms in his private quarters even though he had no ownership rights. A paying guest fell on an unlit staircase and died. It was decided that both the manager and his employers could be occupiers since both had control.
Occupier’s Liability Act
There are two statutory acts for occupier’s liability. First is the Occupier’s Liability Act, 1957 which imposes an obligation on occupiers with regard to lawful visitors. The second one is the Occupier’s Liability Act, 1984 which imposes liability on occupiers with regard to persons other than his visitors.
Occupier’s liability basically refers to actions where occupier’s land are alleged to be responsible for injuries to other visitors or trespassers or children who have visited that particular premises. Visitor refers to those people who have some kind of permission to be on that premises. It includes invitees, licensees, those with contractual permission and those with a statutory right of entry. On the other hand, trespassers are those people who do not have permission to enter a particular property and enters the same illegally.
Section 2 (2) of the occupier’s liability act, 1957 states the common duty of care. It states that occupiers do not have to make the visitor completely safe on the premises – only to do what is reasonable.
Section 2 (3) (a) of the act states the rule for children. It states that the occupiers must be prepared for children to be less careful than adults – the premises must be reasonably safe for a child of that age.
Therefore, the following are the obligations of the occupiers which can be considered under three heads:
- Obligation towards lawful visitors
- Obligation towards trespassers
- Obligation towards children
Obligation towards lawful visitors
As it has already been mentioned above that lawful visitors include invitees, licensees, etc. hence, there are different types of duties which the occupier owes towards them.
Duty towards an invitee: Whenever an occupier invites someone to his premises, it is his duty to take reasonable care of the invitee to prevent him from any damage or unusual danger that may be caused to the invitee in his premises.
In the case of Pilluta Savitri v. G.K. Kumar, (2) husband of the plaintiff was relaxing on the ground floor. At that time the first floor of the house was under construction. During the time of construction, the building collapsed and the sunshade wall fell down on the plaintiff’s husband and he died at that very moment. The defendants were held liable as the construction work was unauthorized.
Duty towards a licensee: A licensee is a person who enters the property of occupier with his due permission, but for his own purpose rather than the interest of occupier. In this case also, the occupier has a duty to take reasonable care of the licensee.
Obligation towards trespasser
The person who enters premises without the permission of the occupier of that premises is known as a trespasser. The occupier has no such duty to take reasonable care towards the protection of a trespasser as the trespasser himself is doing a wrong by entering someone else’s premises in a wrongful manner.
In the case of Robert Addie & Sons (Collieries) Ltd. v. Dumbreck, (3) the defendants owned a field in which they had a wheel for their haulage apparatus. Children used to play near that wheel but were always warned to stay away from that. Plaintiff’s child, a 4n year old boy while playing in that premises was crushed to death because of wheel as the wheel was on motion. The defendants were not held liable as the child was a trespasser and at that time the defendants were far away from the wheel so the act was invisible to them.
Obligation towards children
An occupier must be prepared for children to be less careful than adults, stated in occupier’s liability act, 1957. The occupier should protect children even from such dangers from which an adult is not protected.
In the case of Cooke v. Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland, (4) the defendant was a railway company. They kept a turntable on their land which was close to a road and children used to play there. The defendants did not take any actions to prevent children. A child was injured while playing with the turntable and defendants were held liable for that.
Conclusion
It is concluded that the nature of obligation of duty towards the visitors depends on the type of visitor who visits the premises of the occupier. In all the cases, the occupier must be prepared to take due care of the visitors be it invitee, licensee or children.
Endnotes
- (1)[1966] 1 All ER 582.
- A.I.R. 2000 A.P. 467.
- (1929) A.C. 358.
- (1909) A.C. 229.
