Katko v. Briney
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Katko v. Briney, 183 N.W.2d 657 (Iowa 1971), was a famous tort case decided by the Supreme Court of Iowa, in which a homeowner was held liable for battery for injuries caused to a trespasser who set off a spring gun set as a mantrap in an abandoned house on the homeowner's property.
The case appears in virtually every torts textbook, and has even been the subject of a collection of poems written by law students. It stands for the proposition that, though a landowner has no duty to make his property safe for trespassers, he may not set deadly traps against them.
The notable quotation from the decision is:
- "the law has always placed a higher value upon human safety than upon mere rights of property"
[edit] Sources
- Katko v. Briney case brief
- Andrew J. McClurg,[1]Poetry in Commotion: Katko v. Briney and the Bards of First-Year Torts, 74 Oregon Law Review 823-48 (1995).
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