Ratte v. Dawson

• Decision Date: 13 July 1892
• Citation: 50 Minn. 450
• Parties: LEON RATTE <I>vs.</I> WILLIAM DAWSON.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 450

50 Minn. 450

LEON RATTEvs.

WILLIAM DAWSON.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Decided July 13, 1892.

Appeal by plaintiff, Leon Ratte, administrator of the estate of Eva Ratte, deceased, from an order of the District Court of Ramsey county, Brill, J., made September 7, 1891, denying a new trial of the action.

Butts & Jaques, for appellant.

Stevens, O'Brien & Glenn, for respondent.

VANDERBURGH, J.

The evidence failed to make a case in behalf of the plaintiff, and the action was rightly dismissed. The defendant is the owner of several unoccupied residence lots in the city of St. Paul, on which divers persons with his consent, express or implied, before the accident or injury complained of here, had entered and made excavations for building sand. The premises were open and unfenced, and the pits or excavations made from time to time on the land were unprotected by railing or otherwise. Children residing in the neighborhood were accustomed to visit the place and play there, but it does not appear that the defendant's attention had been called to this fact, though he knew that the excavation for sand had been going on for some considerable time. On Sunday afternoon, September 14, 1890, plaintiff's intestate, an infant of the age of three years, who was in charge of an older sister, about fifteen years of age, and in company with two other sisters, was taken to the premises in question for recreation and pleasure. While amusing themselves there, chiefly in looking for "carnelians," the infant, who was suffered to go into or near one of the excavations, was knocked down by falling earth from an overhanging embankment, and killed.

The excavations were sufficiently removed from the street so that they were not dangerous to persons passing on the sidewalk. The parties were clearly trespassers. They were not on the premises by plaintiff's invitation, or for any lawful purpose. He owed them no duty to fence or guard his premises to prevent them from entering and exposing themselves to danger. There was nothing in the nature of the work going on upon the land, nor anything kept or used thereon, which can be said to have been especially inviting or attractive to children, or calculated to entrap them into danger, so as to bring the case within the rule established in the "Turntable Cases." McAlpin v. Powell, 70 N. Y. 133, 134.

There is nothing to take the case out of the general rule that, where the owner of land, in the exercise of his lawful dominion...