If someone trespasses on a private beach and drowns swimming in the lake, is the owner of the property liable, even if signs are posted saying "Private Beach" and "No swimming when lifeguard not present?"?
Asked by
jca (
36062
)
July 11th, 2012
I live in NY State in a complex that has a beach owned by the homeowner’s association. The whole complex has signs saying “Private” and the beach has signs saying “Private Beach.” There are also signs posted at the beach that say “No swimming when lifeguard not on duty” and has the hours that the lifeguards are on duty.
If someone comes and trespasses and goes swimming when the lifeguards are not on duty, and they drown, is the homeowner’s association liable, even though the people trespass and even though they swam when no lifeguard was on duty?
Again, I live in NY state.
I ask because there was a family swimming before, and I told them that the beach is for people who live here. I want to write a letter to the homeowners’ association about more people coming here who don’t live here, and I want to reference liability, but only if it’s correct that it would be a liability despite the signs.
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9 Answers
A clever attorney could argue in front of the jury that if you owners want to absolve yourself of liability for what happens on your property, you must take reasonable measures to physically prevent the public from accessing it. A sign is not enough since lots and lots of people out there, including Americans, can not read English.
Probably not, but the sign that is missing is “swim at your own risk.”
I would be inclined to say no, the person who trespassed and drowned is at fault, and no one else.
The swimming area could be consider an attractive nuisance for underage children. That is the reason pools have tarps over the water and locks on the cables that hold them down.
I doubt it. I would assume it would be argued as an obvious danger. Also, beach rights does not mean they own the actual body of water necessarily. In FL we have small lakes throughout communities and they are not fenced off while state law does require fencing a pool. Not only do new pools built in FL have to be fenced so neighbors cannot get onto the property, but also a choice of either a baby fence around the pools edge or extremely loud alarms on all doors leading out to the back yard (or where the pool is) separate from other house alarms must be installed.
But, I am not a lawyer.
Unless the homeowners association owns the whole lake, they’d have very limited exposure to liability. Remember, people can sue over anything.
The HA would have liability if the area is not fenced off and a resident drowned, even if it was outside guarded hours.
I don’t think the owner should be liable at all. If it is obvious that a place is private property then I feel that we should take responsibility for our own actions and NOT trespass. I hate this “blame culture” we live in.
@Leanne1986: You are correct, but I am looking for what might be a possibility, as you are aware, people will sue if they have a lawyer who believes the suit will be successful.
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