O'Guin v. Bingham County

Supreme Court of Idaho · 2005 · Torts

TortsNegligence per seLandowner liabilityTrespassersnegligence per setrespasserlandowner dutystatutory duty

Facts

Two O'Guin children were killed when a section of a pit wall collapsed at the Bingham County landfill after they entered the area from an unlocked schoolyard gate, crossed a private field, and reached an unobstructed landfill border. The landfill was closed that day, no employees were present, and parts of the landfill boundary were not fenced or otherwise blocked. The O'Guins alleged, among other theories, that the County violated landfill access statutes and regulations requiring access to be blocked when no attendant was on duty and prohibiting unauthorized persons from entering. The children had previously been held to be trespassers for purposes of the common-law negligence claim.

Issue

When trespassing children are injured at a landfill, does Idaho's common-law rule limiting a landowner's duty to trespassers to refraining from willful or wanton conduct still govern, or can landfill statutes and regulations establish negligence per se and thereby replace the common-law duty? The case also asks whether the cited landfill regulations satisfy Idaho's requirements for negligence per se.

Rule

In Idaho, statutes and administrative regulations may define the applicable standard of care, and violation of such provisions may constitute negligence per se. To replace a common-law duty with a statutory or regulatory duty, the statute or regulation must: (1) clearly define the required standard of conduct; (2) be intended to prevent the type of harm that occurred; (3) protect a class of persons that includes the plaintiff; and (4) have a violation that was the proximate cause of the injury. When those requirements are met, the statutory duty supplants the common-law standard of care; a plaintiff need not also satisfy the common-law trespasser standard of willful or wanton conduct unless some separate statute raises the burden of proof.

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

In Pocatello, Cedar Mesa Landfill is closed on Mondays, and no attendant is on site that day. A gap in the perimeter berm is left open despite a regulation requiring the site to be fenced or otherwise blocked when unattended, and 14-year-old Eli Navarro enters without permission and is injured when loose debris shifts beneath him.

If Eli sues the landfill operator in Idaho on a negligence per se theory based on the access-control regulation, which is the strongest statement of the operator's duty?

Explanation. The majority held that when a statute or regulation clearly defines the standard of conduct, is intended to prevent the type of harm, protects a class including the plaintiff, and the violation proximately caused the injury, the statutory or regulatory duty replaces the common-law standard of care. Thus, a qualifying access-control regulation supplants the common-law trespasser rule requiring willful or wanton conduct.