- Invitee
In the
law oftort s, an invitee is a person who is invited to land by the possessor of the land as a member of the public, or one who's invited to the land for the purpose of business dealings with the possessor of the land. The status of a visitor as an invitee (as opposed to atrespasser or alicensee ) defines the legal rights of the visitor if they are injured due to thenegligence of the property owner.The property owner has a duty to make the property safe for the invitee, which includes conducting a reasonable inspection of the premises to uncover hidden dangers. The property owner also has a
duty to warn the invitee of hazardous conditions that cannot be fixed. Furthermore, property owners assume aduty to rescue an invitee who falls into peril while visiting the property. If anindependent contractor hired by the landowner injures an invitee (intentionally or through negligence), the owner can be heldvicariously liable . This represents the broadestduty of care owed to any class of visitors to the property.An invitee is only an invitee within the scope of permission granted by the landowner. Thus, if he is invited to the livingroom as a houseguest and is injured snooping around in the landowner's bedroom, he does not have invitee status in that area.
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