Opinion

Laube v. Stevenson

  • 137 Conn. 469
  • 78 A.2d 693
  • 25 A.L.R. 2d 592
  • 1951 Conn. LEXIS 139
Court
Supreme Court of Connecticut
Filed
Jan 30, 1951
Status
Published
Author
Jennings
On the bench
Baldwin, Brown, Inglis, Jennings, O'Sullivan
Cited by
59 cases
Authority
More cited than 10.2%

The opinion

Jennings, J.

(dissenting). Guilford v. Yale University, 128 Conn. 449 , 23 A. 2d 917 , was carefully considered, and this court unanimously approved a holding that the question whether a social visitor was a licensee or an invitee was one of fact. The circumstances in the case at bar were entirely different from those in the Guilford case but seem to me to be governed by the same principle. The matter is well summed up by Sir *477 Frederick Pollock, who in his work on Torts ([14th Ed.] p. 422) remarked: “[W]hy in common reason should a person invited for the occupier’s pleasure be worse off than one who is about business concerning both?” The holding in the majority opinion doubtless accords with the weight of authority, but for the reasons stated in the Guilford case I do not see why a social visitor, at least one enjoying an express invitation, should not receive the protection accorded an invitee. See Prosser, “Business Visitors & Invitees,” 26 Minn. L. Rev. 573 . My inability to agree in the result is due only to the fact that the husband is found not liable. While I shall feel bound by the ruling in the majority opinion in the future, I am, as the author of the recent Guilford case, impelled to dissent.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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