Premises liability is a legal doctrine that holds property owners responsible for the safety of their visitors.
While accidents cannot always be prevented, people do have the ability and responsibility to recognize and avoid noticeable dangers.
While different states have different regulations, they all recognize this fact.
Types of Visitors Under the law, people do not owe identical levels of care to everyone around them.
The required level of care actually depends on the relationship between two people, or between a person and a business.
For example, most states divide visitors into three different categories, based on the level of care owed to them.
These categories are:

• Invitees - These are people who visit a company's property for the purpose of conducting business.
  When you open a business, you are implicitly inviting members of the public to come in.
  In most states, your responsibility to invitees is to remove any dangers when possible, and warn them of potential risks that cannot be eliminated.
  
• Licensees - These are people who visit private property as social guests.
  Because there is no blanket invitation to the public in this scenario, property owners have fewer responsibilities.
  In most states, they simply need to warn licensees about any known dangers that exist on their land.
  
• Trespassers - These are people who enter privately owned land without any kind of invitation.
  They are generally not owed a strict duty of care.
  In some states, you simply need to avoid deliberately hurting them unless they are directly threatening you.
  Other states require you to post signs warning trespassers about known dangers on your property.
  

Whether you are a guest or a landowner, it is important to be familiar with these laws.
If a person is injured in your home or business, he or she may have grounds for a legal claim against you.
If successful, the injured party may be rewarded substantial compensation for related physical and financial losses.