Most Florida premises liability cases arise after a guest or customer is injured while on the defendant’s property. These cases generally proceed under the theory that the landowner either failed to warn their guest of a known hazard or did not take sufficient efforts to remedy a dangerous hazard that was on their property.
There are, however, other premises liability theories through which a landowner can be held liable for injuries occurring on their property. For example, under the attractive nuisance doctrine, a landowner can be held responsible for a child’s injuries that occur as a result of a dangerous object, feature, or condition of the defendant’s land that attracted the child onto the property. Notably, under the Florida attractive nuisance doctrine, a landowner can be liable for a child’s injuries even if the child was trespassing at the time of the accident.
What Constitutes an Attractive Nuisance?
There are two ways to establish that an object is an attractive nuisance. Under Florida Statutes section 823.08, lawmakers have enumerated several items that are automatically considered to be attractive nuisances. These items include “abandoned or discarded iceboxes, refrigerators, deep-freeze lockers, clothes washers, clothes dryers.” Also included among these attractive nuisances are any other airtight containers from which the doors have not been removed.