§ 31-5 Premises Liability - Duty Owed to Invitee - in General

• Library: South Carolina Requests to Charge - Civil (SCBar) (2016 Ed.)

§ 31-5 Premises Liability - Duty Owed to Invitee - In General

In premises liability cases, the invitee is offered the utmost duty of care by the owner or occupier of the premises. The owner or occupier of the property owes to an invitee or business visitor the duty of exercising reasonable or ordinary care for his safety, and is liable for injuries resulting from the breach of this duty. It is the duty of the owner or occupier to use reasonable care to prevent an invitee from suffering bodily injury.

The owner or occupier has a duty to warn an invitee only of latent or hidden dangers of which the owner or occupier has knowledge or should have knowledge. That is to say, the defendant must warn an invitee of any unsafe conditions of which the defendant knew or should have known, and of which the invitee was reasonably unaware. The owner or occupier owes a duty to have his premises in a reasonably safe condition and to give warning of latent or concealed perils.

A defendant owes an invitee a duty of due care to discover risks and take safety precautions to warn of or eliminate foreseeable unreasonable risks. An invitee is entitled to expect that the owner or occupier will take reasonable care to know the actual condition prevailing at the time the invitee is on the premises and either make those conditions safe or warn the invitee of the dangerous conditions. The degree of care required is commensurate with...