Ditches, ponds, tanks and river frontage are ordinary on Verde Valley property. Water on land you own draws children, and the law takes a particular view of hazards that attract them.
An attractive nuisance is a hazard likely to draw children who cannot appreciate the danger. Water is the classic one.
Three things about owning water.
The attractive nuisance principle recognizes that a child drawn to a hazard may not appreciate it, and it can impose a duty on a landowner even toward a child who was trespassing. Water is the classic example. The duty is to take reasonable steps, not to make the property impossible to enter.
Fencing, gates, signage and removing the means of access are what "reasonable" tends to mean in practice. None of it is expensive relative to the exposure, and all of it is evidence that the hazard was taken seriously if a claim ever arrives.
This is one of a small number of residential exposures where the potential claim is limited only by the circumstances. Standard liability limits are not sized for it. An umbrella is the only practical way to carry cover proportionate to the risk.
Water, access and children.
Ponds, tanks, ditches and river frontage all count.
Fencing and gates are both protection and evidence.
Almost always too low for this particular exposure.
Tell us what water is on the land and how the property is fenced.
We size the limit for the one exposure that has no ceiling.
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