If you are a property owner, you had better be prepared for the latest in a long line of litigious opportunities. Your neighbor may have wandering children who enter your property, lured by a potentially dangerous manmade object, building, or hole. If they are injured or worse, you could be sued for having an "attractive nuisance" which caused the uninvited problem. Never mind that the children weren't supervised by their parents; you are still liable for providing an "irresistible" lure and have left yourself open to litigation.

An attractive nuisance can be any manmade object that presents an irresistible attraction and hidden danger to young children, and it is your responsibility to see that your property is properly secured and maintained so that a curious child does not get hurt.

These laws are meant to protect children from flagrant abuses of property ownership, such as those yards that are poorly maintained or stocked like junkyards with rusting jagged metal, broken glass, and tomb-like refrigerators. But attractive nuisance liability is extremely broad. It also extends to the hapless property owner who is guilty of posing temporary dangers, such as leaving a ladder on the side of a house while taking a break from painting the eves. If a child shimmies up the ladder and then falls from the roof, the do-it-yourselfer is considered at fault.

This is a sore issue because of the large gray area that exists for potential lawsuits. Since children do not fully realize some dangers, a property owner is liable if a child is injured when proper precautions and safety measures are not taken, which means the property owner is either not aware of a potential danger or is in flagrant disregard of that potential for danger. Whether or not a child would know an object is dangerous and whether the property owner took reasonable precautions to prevent injuries are the issues that are heavily debated in court. This means that the property owner who accidentally leaves his tool shed door unlocked is as liable as the junkie who defiantly leaves an old refrigerator in the yard with the door still connected.

So before you build that swimming pool and leave a big hole in the ground, make sure you have a fence around your property, even though it would help your landscaping plan to fence it last. And that may not even be enough. Some local laws insist that the property owner go to the expense of erecting pool enclosures above and beyond the fencing of the yard, even if the owner has no small children living at home.

And beware of everyday objects, too. Don't leave your car idling and unlocked in the driveway while you go back inside for something you forgot. Your neighbor's child may pick that exact moment to take a joyride right into a tree. And don't leave that lawnmower running or your power tools out while you skip indoors to use the rest room You could return to a missing foot or hand that will bankrupt you.

It's a new world in which we place blame instead of taking responsibility. No longer are we required to raise our children to respect other people's property and its boundaries. First, we would have to raise them to mind us and respect what we tell them, and then we'd actually have to be around to supervise them. Since that doesn't happen in many families, we must be able to pass the blame along to someone else, should the worst occur. Now there is a legal fail-safe to bail us out in case we don't do our jobs as parents and neighbors.

The unspoken issue is where parental responsibility lies. What is the matter with this society in which we so willingly abdicate responsibility for our own children, expecting unsuspecting neighbors to anticipate their curiosity and daring and take the appropriate measures? In many cases those measures are necessary, but what about taking them at home, with our children first? But we are a nation that already expects day-care centers and schools to educate our children and teach them family values and common sense. We are too busy working to support homes that are too large for our needs and to support a consumerism that will never satisfy our wants. With all of those distractions, we can't seem to be bothered with training our children to use good judgment themselves.

Since the abdication of parental responsibility is legally defensible in court, your best course of action as a property owner is prevention. If you are in doubt as to whether something constitutes an attractive nuisance, then secure it or get rid of it. If this article has made you paranoid enough, find out what are considered attractive nuisances in your community, ask your insurance agent, and rely on your common sense about safety.

And never turn your back on your neighbors or their children.

Published: January 15, 1998

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.