Duties of Landowners and Common Carriers

In general, people owe a duty of reasonable care to avoid causing injury to others. However, sometimes, the law prescribes duties of care that require more or less than reasonable care. For example, in many jurisidictions, a homeowner owes a duty of care to a burglar, but this duty requires only that the homeowner refrain from intentionally injuring the burglar. This is a duty to exercise minimal care. By contrast, in many jurisdictions, a commuter rail company owes its passengers a duty of extraordinary care to protect them from harm. Most of these duties that depart from the general standard of reasonable care are associated with particular types of relationships between the parties, such as landowner-trespasser and commmon carrier-passenger. We will examine both of these in turn. Note that jurisdictions vary widely in their approach to these different duties of care.