Cordula v. Dietrich

• Decision Date: 02 February 1960
• Citation: 101 N.W.2d 126,9 Wis.2d 211
• Parties: Magda Lena CORDULA, Deceased, by Max Richard Cordula, Adm'r, et al., Appellants, v. George DIETRICH, Respondent.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Page 126

101 N.W.2d 126

9 Wis.2d 211

Magda Lena CORDULA, Deceased, by Max Richard Cordula, Adm'r et al., Appellants, v. George DIETRICH, Respondent.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Feb. 2, 1960.

Blakely, Long, Grutzner & Jaeckle, J. R. Long, Beloit, for appellants.

Jeffris, Mouat, Oestreich, Wood & Cunningham, Louis D. Gage, Jr., Janesville, for respondent.

MARTIN, Chief Justice.

Mrs. Cordula was over seventy years old at the time of the accident, June 29, 1957; she resided in the city of Beloit. Defendant George Dietrich was her son-in-law, residing in the town of Beloit, Rock county. On the day in question, plaintiffs having been invited to dinner at the defendant's home, Mrs. Cordula, it is alleged in the complaint, tripped and fell over a garden hose left by defendant across a walk leading to the house.

The parties agree with the trial court that at the time of the accident Mrs. Cordula, as a social guest of the defendant, occupied the legal status of a licensee. The rule to the applied is stated in Prosser on Torts (2d ed.), p. 447 as follows:

'Thus all of the decisions are agreed that a social guest, however cordially he may have been invited and urged to come, is not in law an invitee, but is nothing more than a licensee, to whom the possessor owes no duty of inspection and affirmative care to make the premises safe for his visit. The reason usually given is that the guest understands when he comes that he is to be placed on the same footing as one of the family, and must take the premises as the occupier himself uses them without any preparation for his safety * * *'

Exceptions to the rule are that the host may be held liable for his active negligence or for permitting something in the nature of a trap to exist on his premises. As stated in Greenfield v. Miller, 1921, 173 Wis. 184, 188, 180 N.W. 834, 836, 12 A.L.R. 982:

'* * * the legal distinction between implied invitor and invitee and a mere licensor and licensee is quite well marked in the decisions; the general rule being that there is no liability on the part of the licensor for injury sustained by those coming on his premises as mere licensees, unless there is something on the premises in the nature of a trap, which fact proximately caused the injury, or the licensor was guilty of active negligence.'

In that case the plaintiff was injured when she slipped on a small rug placed on the highly polished floor of a corridor in defendant's home. The court held defendant had no duty...