Quiz Answers
Test Your Knowledge of Landowner Liability
By Judon Fambrough

1. True.  Both an invitee and a licensee enter the property with the landowner’s consent, but an invitee is there for the landowner’s economic benefit while the licensee is not.
2. False.Under Texas common law, the landowner owes a greater duty to an invitee than to a licensee.  For invitees, Texas law charges the landowner with a duty to warn or make safe all dangerous conditions about which the landowner knows or should know. For licensees, Texas law requires the landowner to warn or make safe only the dangerous conditions the landowner knows about.
3. True.If a child accompanies parents into a grocery store, both the adults and the child are classified as invitees according to Texas common law.
4. False.Texas common law recognizes the “attractive nuisance doctrine.” The landowner may be liable for a trespassing child’s injury if the landowner maintains a dangerous condition where children are apt to trespass and the economic benefit of maintaining the dangerous condition is minimal compared to the risk of injury to the child.
5. True.  An effective save-and-hold-harmless agreement must satisfy five conditions. The agreement must be procured from an adult, be negotiated from fair bargaining positions, give the person signing the agreement something in return (such as the right to enter the property), state that the person signing it will hold the landowner harmless from the landowner’s negligent acts, and be printed conspicuously to give fair notice of the release provisions. The wording cannot be buried in the fine print.
6. True.  An appellate Texas court ruled that a parent cannot sign an effective waiver agreement on behalf of a child.
7. False.  A Texas hunting lease is not a lease agreement.  It is a license because typical hunting leases do not grant the hunter exclusive possession or control of the property.
8. True.  According to Section 30.05 of the Texas Penal Code, a “No Trespassing Sign” is automatically imparted by the visible presence of crops grown for human consumption, under cultivation or in the process of being harvested.
9. True.  According to the Texas Penal Code, a “No Trespassing Sign” is automatically imparted by fences or other enclosures obviously designed to exclude intruders or to contain livestock.
10. False.  According to a 1997 amendment to the Texas Penal Code, a “No Trespassing Sign” is imparted by a vertical purple paint mark placed on a tree or post that is three to five feet above the ground, a minimum of one inch wide and eight inches long, and is no more than 100 feet apart in forest land and 1,000 feet apart in all other land.  The statute explicitly states the marks must be placed on a tree or post, not a tree or rock.
11. True.  Chapter 75 of the Texas Civil Remedies and Practices Code relieves the landowner from the common law rules regarding landowner liability. However, the recreational activity must occur on agricultural land as defined by the statute.  Also, the chapter applies to all recreational guests whether or not they pay to be on the property.  A 2003 amendment raised the charging limit from four times the amount of the ad valorem taxes to 20 times that amount.
12. False.  There is one exception, according to Chapter 75 of the Texas Civil Remedies and Practices Code. When total charges exceed 20 times the ad valorem property taxes, the landowner still owes recreational guests no greater duty than is owed a trespasser, if the landowner has specific minimum amounts of liability insurance on the property.
13. False.  By statute, activities such as these are “recreational”: hunting, fishing, swimming, boating, camping, picnicking, hiking, pleasure driving, nature study (including bird watching), cave exploration, water sports (including waterskiing), other activities associated with enjoying nature or the outdoors, bicycling and mountain biking, disc golf, on-leash and off-leash walking of dogs, and radio-control flying and related activities. Although horseback riding is not explicitly listed, it could fall under the last category of enjoying nature and the outdoors.