Holland v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals · 1981 · Torts

TortsPremises liabilityTrespassersAttractive nuisancetrespasserchild trespasserlandowner liabilityrailroad

Facts

A nine-year-old child was injured by a train while trespassing on a railroad right-of-way where B & O and Penn Central maintained contiguous tracks. The complaint relied on an attractive nuisance theory rather than alleging intentional, willful, or wanton injury. As to Penn Central, record materials showed no Penn Central freight train came within a one-mile radius of the accident scene that afternoon, and the child testified he was pulled into the train by another boy who had boarded the moving train. The trial court ruled that a moving train could not support attractive nuisance liability on these facts.

Issue

Should the District of Columbia abandon the Firfer rule limiting landowner liability to trespassers, and, if not, can a child trespasser injured by a moving train invoke the attractive nuisance exception under Restatement § 339?

Rule

In the District of Columbia, trespassers generally may recover from landowners only for intentional, wanton, or willful injury, or for maintenance of a hidden engine of destruction. The attractive nuisance doctrine is a narrow exception that applies only if all five elements of Restatement (Second) of Torts § 339 are satisfied, and it does not apply as a matter of law to injuries from normally operated moving trains because § 339(c) cannot be met: the danger of a moving train is obvious to a child of sufficient age to be at large.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In St. Louis, eight-year-old Leo Martin cut across the tracks of Great River Freight Lines to get home from a park. A normally operated freight train approached in plain view and struck him after he ran alongside the train and stumbled. Leo's complaint alleges only that trains attract children and that the railroad should have fenced the right-of-way.

Under the governing rule, which is the strongest argument for dismissing Leo's complaint?

Explanation. The majority retained the general trespasser rule: a trespasser may recover only for intentional, wanton, or willful injury, or maintenance of a hidden engine of destruction. Attractive nuisance is a narrow exception requiring all five elements of Restatement § 339. For a normally operated moving train, § 339(c) fails as a matter of law because the danger is obvious to a child of sufficient age to be at large. (Derived from Holland v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. (n.d.).)