O’guin v. Bingham County

122 P.3d 308 (Idaho 2005)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Shaun and Alex O'Guin were killed while playing at the D landfill. A section of the pit wall collapsed and crushed the children. The children had been eating lunch at Ridgecrest Elementary School as part of a summer lunch program. As they started walking home, the children went through an unlocked gate at the back of the schoolyard and through a privately owned empty field. The landfill was closed on the day the children were killed, and no landfill employees were present on the site. P sued alleging the landfill was an attractive nuisance and that D breached certain legal duties to control access to the landfill. D filed a motion for summary judgment. The attractive nuisance claim was dismissed for a failure to assert facts that prove an essential element of the claim. D requested permission to appeal, and the court sua sponte reconsidered its decision and granted summary judgment to D. The case was appealed. On remand, D renewed its motion for summary judgment on the negligence per se claim and the district court granted the motion. P appealed. The parties disagree on how the common law duty of a landowner to a trespasser affects the statutory duty of a landfill owner. Ps argue that once the district court determined the regulations established a duty and D had breached that duty, there was no need to apply the common law willful or wanton standard. D argues that the children were trespassers, even if the requirements of negligence per se are met, Ps must still prove that D's conduct was willful or wanton.