Duty of Owner or Possessor of Land to Entrants Addressed

What is an individual’s duty of care as a “possessor of the land”? In Iowa, if a person that owns or possesses property permits a third person to come onto the premises, he is under a duty of care to reasonably control the conduct of that person.  This means that the owner or possessor must prevent the entrant from intentionally harming others. The Iowa Court of Appeals recently examined this issue, bringing to light a parent’s duty to control the actions of those entering onto their property. 

In this case, a son hosted a private party at his father’s home.  During the party, the father sat at a dining room table and supervised the party looking through glass doors to the backyard where the invited guests were gathered. Unfortunately, some uninvited guests crashed the party. The son and a friend asked them to leave. Instead of leaving, the uninvited group walked back to their cars and obtained weapons. The son’s friend was hit in the face with a baseball bat or metal bar. The father learned of the incident after the friend was taken to the hospital. The son’s friend sued the father for his failure to protect him from intentional harm as “possessor” of the land. 

The trial court ruled that the son’s friend was unable to provide sufficient evidence to prove that the father had a duty to act in the situation. The friend appealed and the Iowa Court of Appeals quickly disposed of the case. The appellate court agreed with the trial court judge’s analysis and found that the father did not owe the son’s friend a duty of care in this situation. Since these cases turn on the “foreseeability of harm” in the situation, the court found that since the father had never consented to the uninvited guests’ presence on his property, he did not have a duty or opportunity to control that person’s behavior. Iowa courts have routinely held that there is no duty for a homeowner to control the behavior of those who enter the premises without consent. Gummert v. Paglia, No. 0-281/09-1196 (Iowa Ct. App., Jul. 28, 2010).