Duty of care for a Massachusetts campground is to warn of dangerous conditions.

Plaintiff assumes the risk of his injury at a commercial campground if there is not dangerous condition and/or he knows about the condition because he walks the trail during the day.

Monaco v. Vacation Camp Resorts International, Inc., 86 Mass. App. Ct. 1125; 21 N.E.3d 187; 2014 Mass. App. Unpub. LEXIS 1272

State: Massachusetts, Appeals Court of Massachusetts

Plaintiff: Anthony Monaco

Defendant: Vacation Camp Resorts International, Inc.’s (VCRI’s) Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park Campground

Plaintiff Claims: negligent in failing to light the “pathway”3 and maintain it in a safe condition, to warn against its use, or to construct a graded path in its place

Defendant Defenses: Assumption of the Risk

Holding: for the defendant

Year: 2014

This case involves a commercial campground. The plaintiff was walking up to the restroom at night and fell on the path. He sued for his injuries. The plaintiff sued the campground and others who were never clearly identified in the appellate decision.

The lower court stated the plaintiff assumed the risk based upon the defendant’s motion for summary judgment, and the plaintiff appealed.

Analysis: making sense of the law based on these facts.

The court first reviewed the requirements for a negligence suit to succeed under Massachusetts law and condensed the four steps to one sentence. “To succeed in an action for negligence, the plaintiff must establish duty, breach, causation, and damages.” The duty of care is only owed to those who are foreseeably endangered by the contact with the defendant.

Not every risk that might be foreseen gives rise to a duty to avoid a course of conduct; a duty arises because the likelihood and magnitude of the risk perceived is such that the conduct is unreasonably dangerous.

The duty of a land owner in Massachusetts is that of reasonable care “under all the circumstances in the maintenance and operation of their property.”

Although landowners should anticipate and take measures to avoid the risks that their property poses to invitees, they are not obligated to “consistently and constantly” check for dangerous conditions. The law does not impose a duty on landowners to exercise precautions, unless the dangers are “readily observable” by landowners and imperceptible to invitees. That is, an open and obvious danger negates the existence of a duty of care.

The fact that the plaintiff was injured does not create a legal obligation or duty on the part of the defendant. Evidence is needed to support the lack of care or proof the landowner k of the dangerous condition.

…evidence, other than “the obviousness of the steep slope,” that the pathway posed an apparent danger. To support his claim, the plaintiff submitted expert testimony that the pathway was “rutted,” “uneven,” and “unlit,” and did not comport with International Building Code standards.

The plaintiff had descended the hill earlier and had not seen a dangerous condition. In fact, the plaintiff had been using the campground for eighteen years and had used the path three times the day he fell.

Nor had a dangerous condition on the hillside been identified or spotted during the camps annual inspection.

Both parties had ample opportunities to observe the campground, yet neither noticed any unreasonable dangers. The only risk associated with the pathway was the open and obvious nature of its slope and uneven terrain, which did not impose any duty on the defendants to light or otherwise improve the path.

The court held the defendants owed not duty to protect the plaintiff from the conditions on the pathway.

So Now What?

The requirement that a landowner is not obligated to consistently and constantly check for dangerous conditions is not found in all states. In most states if the dangerous condition exists, the landowner must fix it or warn of it.

The obligations or duties owed to people on your land are usually based upon the reasons why the injured person was originally upon your land. In Massachusetts that issue is not discussed.

Here the obligation was to warn or correct dangerous conditions. It did not matter why the person was on the land.

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