507 S.E.2d 882 (1998)

John Harvey NELSON
v.
Daryl Dean C. FREELAND and Belinda Brittain Freeland.

No. 216A98.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

December 31, 1998.

Maddox & Gorham, P.A. by E. Thomas Maddox, Jr.; and Harrison, North, Cooke & Landreth by A. Wayland Cooke, Greensboro, for plaintiff-appellant.

Burton & Sue, L.L.P. by Walter K. Burton, David K. Williams, Jr., and James D. Secor, III, Greensboro, for defendant-appellees.

WYNN, Justice.

The sole issue arising out of the case sub judice is whether defendant Dean Freeland's ("Freeland") act of leaving a stick on his porch constituted negligence. Indeed, this case presents us with the simplest of factual scenarios—Freeland requested that plaintiff John Harvey Nelson ("Nelson") pick him up at his house for a business meeting the two were attending, and Nelson, while doing so, tripped over a stick that Freeland *883 had inadvertently left lying on his porch. Nelson brought this action against Freeland and his wife seeking damages for the injuries he sustained in the fall. The trial court granted summary judgment for the defendants, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. See Nelson v. Freeland, 129 N.C.App. 427, 500 S.E.2d 778 (1998).

Although the most basic principles of tort law should provide an easy answer to this case, our current premises-liability trichotomy—that is, the invitee, licensee, and trespasser classifications—provides no clear solution and has created dissension and confusion amongst the attorneys and judges involved. Thus, once again, this Court confronts the problem of clarifying our enigmatic premises-liability scheme—a problem that we have addressed over fourteen times. See, e.g., Cassell v. Collins, 344 N.C. 160, 472 S.E.2d 770 (1996); Newton v. New Hanover County Bd. of Educ., 342 N.C. 554, 467 S.E.2d 58 (1996); Roumillat v. Simplistic Enters., 331 N.C. 57, 414 S.E.2d 339 (1992); Pulley v. Rex Hosp., 326 N.C. 701, 392 S.E.2d 380 (1990); Branks v. Kern, 320 N.C. 621, 359 S.E.2d 780 (1987); Mazzacco v. Purcell, 303 N.C. 493, 279 S.E.2d 583 (1981); Norwood v. Sherwin-Williams Co., 303 N.C. 462, 279 S.E.2d 559 (1981); Rappaport v. Days Inn of Am., Inc., 296 N.C. 382, 250 S.E.2d 245 (1979); Husketh v. Convenient Sys., Inc., 295 N.C. 459, 245 S.E.2d 507 (1978); Anderson v. Butler, 284 N.C. 723, 202 S.E.2d 585 (1974); Freeze v. Congleton, 276 N.C. 178, 171 S.E.2d 424 (1970); Game v. Charles Stores Co., 268 N.C. 676, 151 S.E.2d 560 (1966); Thames v. Nello L. Teer Co., 267 N.C. 565, 148 S.E.2d 527 (1966); Jones v. Kinston Hous. Auth., 262 N.C. 604, 138 S.E.2d 235 (1964).

As the aforementioned cases demonstrate, we have repeatedly waded through the mire of North Carolina premises-liability law. Nonetheless, despite our numerous attempts to clarify this liability scheme and transform it into a system capable of guiding North Carolina landowners toward appropriate conduct, this case and its similarly situated predecessors convincingly demonstrate that our current premises-liability scheme has failed to establish a stable and predictable system of laws. Significantly, despite over one hundred years of utilizing the common-law trichotomy, we still are unable to determine unquestionably whether a man who trips over a stick at a friend/business partner's house is entitled to a jury trial—a question ostensibly answerable by the most basic tenet and duty under tort law: the reasonable-person standard of care.

Given that our current premises-liability scheme has confounded our judiciary, we can only assume that it has inadequately apprised landowners of their respective duties of care. Thus, it befalls us to examine the continuing utility of the common-law trichotomy as a means of determining landowner liability in North Carolina. In analyzing this question, we will consider the effectiveness of our current scheme of premises-liability law, the nationwide trend of abandoning the common-law trichotomy in favor of a reasonable-care standard, and the policy reasons for and against abandoning the trichotomy in this state.

I. ANALYSIS

A. CURRENT NORTH CAROLINA PREMISES-LIABILITY LAW

Under current North Carolina law, the standard of care a landowner^[1] owes to persons entering upon his land depends upon the entrant's status, that is, whether the entrant is a licensee, invitee, or trespasser. See Newton, 342 N.C. at 560, 467 S.E.2d at 63. An invitee is one who goes onto another's premises in response to an express or implied invitation and does so for the mutual benefit of both the owner and himself. Id. The classic example of an invitee is a store customer. See, e.g., Rives v. Great Atl. & Pac. Tea Co., 68 N.C.App. 594, 315 S.E.2d 724 (1984). A licensee, on the other hand, "is one who enters onto another's premises with the possessor's permission, express or implied, solely for his own purposes rather than the possessor's benefit." Mazzacco, 303 N.C. *884 at 497, 279 S.E.2d at 586-87. The classic example of a licensee is a social guest. See, e.g., Crane v. Caldwell, 113 N.C.App. 362, 366, 438 S.E.2d 449, 452 (1994). Lastly, a trespasser is one who enters another's premises without permission or other right. See Newton, 342 N.C. at 559, 467 S.E.2d at 63.

In a traditional common-law premises-liability action, the threshold issue of determining the plaintiff's status at the time of the injury is of substantial import. The gravity of this determination stems from the fact that there is a descending degree of duty owed by a landowner based upon the plaintiff's status. Id. at 561, 467 S.E.2d at 63.

The highest degree of care a landowner owes is the duty of reasonable care toward those entrants classified as invitees. See Roumillat, 331 N.C. at 64, 414 S.E.2d at 342. Specifically, a landowner owes an invitee a duty to use ordinary care to keep his property reasonably safe and to warn of hidden perils or unsafe conditions that could be discovered by reasonable inspection and supervision. See Pulley, 326 N.C. at 705, 392 S.E.2d at 383.

A landowner's duty toward a licensee, on the other hand, is significantly less stringent. The duty of care owed to a licensee by an owner or possessor of land ordinarily is to refrain from doing the licensee willful injury and from wantonly and recklessly exposing him to danger. McCurry, 90 N.C.App. at 645, 369 S.E.2d at 392. Thus, a licensee enters another's premises at his own risk and enjoys the license subject to its concomitant perils. See Turpin v. Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church, 20 N.C.App. 580, 583, 202 S.E.2d 351, 353 (1974).

Finally, with respect to trespassers, a landowner need only refrain from the willful or wanton infliction of injury. See Bell v. Page, 271 N.C. 396, 156 S.E.2d 711 (1967). Willful injury constitutes actual knowledge of the danger combined with a design, purpose, or intent to do wrong and inflict injury. See Howard v. Jackson, 120 N.C.App. 243, 246, 461 S.E.2d 793, 797 (1995). Similarly, a wanton act is performed intentionally with a reckless indifference to the injuries likely to result. Id.

B. PREMISES-LIABILITY NATIONWIDE—THE MODERN TREND OF ABOLISHING THE COMMON-LAW TRICHOTOMY IN FAVOR OF A REASONABLE-PERSON STANDARD

Although the common-law trichotomy has been entrenched in this country's tort-liability jurisprudence since our nation's inception, over the past fifty years, many states have questioned, modified, and even abolished it after analyzing its utility in modern times. At first, states believed that although the policies underlying the trichotomy—specifically those involving the supremacy of land ownership rights—were no longer viable, they nonetheless could find means to salvage it. See Jones v. Hansen, 254 Kan. 499, 505-06, 867 P.2d 303, 307-08 (1994); Heins v. Webster County, 250 Neb. 750, 757-58, 552 N.W.2d 51, 55-56 (1996). In particular, states attempted to salvage the trichotomy by engrafting into it certain exceptions and subclassifications which would allow it to better congeal with our present-day policy of balancing land-ownership rights with the right of entrants to receive adequate protection from harm. See Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 358 U.S. 625, 630-31, 79 S.Ct. 406, 409-10, 3 L.Ed.2d 550, 554-55 (1959); Heins, 250 Neb. at 757-58, 552 N.W.2d at 55-56. Accordingly, North Carolina, along with the rest of the country, witnessed the burgeoning of novel jurisprudence involving entrant-protection theories such as the active-negligence and attractive-nuisance doctrines. See Michael Sears, Abrogation of the Traditional Common Law of Premises Liability, 44 U. Kan. L.Rev. 175, 179 (1995); see also Fitch v. Selwyn Village, 234 N.C. 632, 634, 68 S.E.2d 255, 257 (1951) (discussing attractive-nuisance doctrine); De-Haven v. Hoskins, 95 N.C.App. 397, 400, 382 S.E.2d 856, 858 (discussing active-negligence doctrine), disc. rev. denied, 325 N.C. 705, 388 S.E.2d 452 (1989). Unfortunately, these exceptions and subclassifications ultimately forced courts to maneuver their way through a dizzying array of factual nuances and delineations. See Kermarec, 358 U.S. at 631, 79 S.Ct. at 410, 3 L.Ed.2d at 555 (stating "the classification and subclassification bred by *885 the common law have produced confusion and conflict"); Smith v. Arbaugh's Restaurant, Inc., 469 F.2d 97, 103 (D.C.Cir.1972) (stating that the exceptions and subclassifications have "produced even further confusion and conflict"), cert. denied, 412 U.S. 939, 93 S.Ct. 2774, 37 L.Ed.2d 399 (1973); O'Leary v. Coenen, 251 N.W.2d 746, 749 (N.D.1977) (holding that "the many exceptions and distinctions make the use of the common law categories complex, confusing, inequitable, and paradoxically, nonuniform"); Hudson v. Gaitan, 675 S.W.2d 699, 702 (Tenn.1984) (holding that the numerous exceptions and subclassifications engrafted into the trichotomy have created a "complex patchwork of legal classifications which are by no means uniformly interpreted in the various jurisdictions").

Additionally, courts were often confronted with situations where none of the exceptions or subclassifications applied, yet if they utilized the basic trichotomy, unjust and unfair results would emerge. See Smith, 469 F.2d at 103 (stating that the trichotomy leads to harsh results); Rowland v. Christian, 69 Cal.2d 108, 119, 443 P.2d 561, 568, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 104 (1968) (noting that "continued adherence to the common law distinctions can only lead to injustice"); Jones, 254 Kan. at 508, 867 P.2d at 309 (holding that the negligence standard is needed in premises-liability actions to avoid the harshness resulting from the rigid application of the trichotomy). Therefore, these courts were forced to define terms such as "invitee" and "active conduct" in a broad or strained manner to avoid leaving an injured plaintiff deserving of compensation without redress. See Rowland, 69 Cal.2d at 114, 443 P.2d at 565, 70 Cal.Rptr. at 101 (noting that courts have been forced to broadly define terms like active conduct to avoid the general rule limiting liability); Peterson v. Balach, 294 Minn. 161, 168-69, 199 N.W.2d 639, 644-45 (1972) (discussing the need to have numerous broadly defined exceptions to the trichotomy); Basso v. Miller, 40 N.Y.2d 233, 246, 352 N.E.2d 868, 875, 386 N.Y.S.2d 564, 571 (1976) (Breitel, J., concurring) (stating that courts have been forced to broaden the common-law categories to include persons who in the past would have been excluded). Although these broad or strained definitions may have led to just and fair results, they often involved rationales teetering on the edge of absurdity. For example, in Hansen v. Richey, 237 Cal.App.2d 475, 480-81, 46 Cal.Rptr. 909, 913 (1965), under the trichotomy the court would not have been able to compensate the plaintiffs for their licensee son's drowning because the defendant did not maintain his pool in a manner which wantonly or recklessly exposed the decedent to danger. Therefore, to reach a just result, the court in Hansen read the phrase "active conduct" broadly to include the general "active" act of having a party. Id. Under this strained reading, however, "active conduct" could plausibly exist whenever a landowner "actively" invites someone to his home.

Another example of a broad or strained reading can be found in this Court's holding in Walker v. Randolph County, 251 N.C. 805, 112 S.E.2d 551 (1960). In Walker, we held that a seventy-seven-year-old woman who went to the county courthouse to look at a notice of sale of realty was an invitee when she fell down the courthouse stairway. This case involved a strained reading of the term "invitee" given that we have always defined that term to include only those individuals who enter another's premises for the mutual benefit of the landowner and himself. See Crane, 113 N.C.App. at 366, 438 S.E.2d at 452. That is, we were willing to implicitly conclude that the county somehow benefitted from posting notices it was statutorily required to post in order to classify the plaintiff as an invitee and hence provide compensation. Walker, 251 N.C. at 811, 112 S.E.2d at 555. Thus, Hansen and Walker demonstrate how courts have made strained readings of the trichotomy classifications to reach just and fair results.

The first significant move toward abolishing the common-law trichotomy occurred in 1957 when England—the jurisdiction giving rise to the trichotomy—passed the Occupier's Liability Act which abolished the distinction between invitees, licensees and so-called contractual visitors. See Rowland, 69 Cal.2d at 118, 443 P.2d at 568, 70 Cal.Rptr. at 104; Peterson, 294 Minn. at 165, 199 N.W.2d at 642; Heins, 250 Neb. at 754, 552 N.W.2d at *886 53. Shortly thereafter, the United States Supreme Court decided not to apply the trichotomy to admiralty law after concluding that it would be inappropriate to hold that a visitor is entitled to a different or lower standard of care simply because he is classified as a "licensee." See Kermarec, 358 U.S. at 630, 79 S.Ct. at 409-10, 3 L.Ed.2d at 554. In so ruling, the Court noted that "[t]he distinctions which the common law draws between licensee and invitee were inherited from a culture deeply rooted to the land, a culture which traced many of its standards to a heritage of feudalism." Id. The Court continued:

In an effort to do justice in an industrialized urban society, with its complex economic and individual relationships, modern common-law courts have found it necessary to formulate increasingly subtle verbal refinements, to create subclassifications among traditional common-law categories, and to delineate fine gradations in the standards of care which the landowners owe to each. Yet even within a single jurisdiction, the classifications and subclassifications bred by the common law have produced confusion and conflict.

Id. at 631, 79 S.Ct. at 410, 3 L.Ed.2d at 554-55 (footnote omitted). Ultimately, the Court concluded that the numerous exceptions and subclassifications engrafted into the trichotomy have obscured the law, thereby causing it to move unevenly and with hesitation toward "`imposing on owners and occupiers a single duty of reasonable care in all the circumstances.'" Id. at 631, 79 S.Ct. at 410, 3 L.Ed.2d at 555 (quoting Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 245 F.2d 175, 180 (Clark, C.J., dissenting)).

Nine years later, the Supreme Court of California decided the seminal case of Rowland v. Christian, 69 Cal.2d 108, 443 P.2d 561, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, which abolished the common-law trichotomy in California in favor of modern negligence principles. Specifically, the court in Rowland held that the proper question to be asked in premises-liability actions is whether "in the management of his property [the landowner] has acted as a reasonable man in view of the probability of injury to others." Id. at 119, 443 P.2d at 568, 70 Cal.Rptr. at 104. Moreover, the court followed both England's and the United States Supreme Court's lead by noting that "[w]hatever may have been the historical justifications for the common law distinctions, it is clear that those distinctions are not justified in the light of our modern society." Id. at 117, 443 P.2d at 567, 70 Cal.Rptr. at 103. The court continued by stating that the trichotomy was "contrary to our modern social mores and humanitarian values ... [, and it] obscure[s] rather than illuminate[s] the proper considerations which should govern determination of the question of duty." Id. at 119, 443 P.2d at 568, 70 Cal.Rptr. at 104.

The Rowland decision ultimately served as a catalyst for similar judicial decisions across the country. Indeed, since Rowland, twenty-five jurisdictions have either modified or abolished their common-law trichotomy scheme—seven within the last five years.

Specifically, eleven jurisdictions have completely eliminated the common-law distinctions between licensee, invitee, and trespasser. See Smith, 469 F.2d 97; Webb v. City of Sitka, 561 P.2d 731 (Alaska 1977); Mile High Fence Co. v. Radovich, 175 Colo. 537, 489 P.2d 308 (1971);^[2]Pickard v. City of Honolulu, 51 Haw. 134, 452 P.2d 445 (1969); Keller v. Mols, 129 Ill.App.3d 208, 84 Ill.Dec. 411, 472 N.E.2d 161 (1984) (abolishing with respect to children only); Sheets v. Ritt, Ritt & Ritt, Inc., 581 N.W.2d 602 (Iowa 1998); Cates v. Beauregard Elec. Co-op., Inc., 328 So.2d 367 (La.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 833, 97 S.Ct. 97, 50 L.Ed.2d 98 (1976); Limberhand v. Big Ditch Co., 218 Mont. 132, 706 P.2d 491 (1985); Moody v. Manny's Auto Repair, 110 Nev. 320, 871 P.2d 935 (1994); Ouellette v. Blanchard, 116 N.H. 552, 364 A.2d 631 (1976); Basso, 40 N.Y.2d 233, 352 N.E.2d 868, 386 N.Y.S.2d 564.

Further, fourteen jurisdictions have repudiated the licensee-invitee distinction while maintaining the limited-duty rule for trespassers. *887 See Wood v. Camp, 284 So.2d 691 (Fla.1973); Jones, 254 Kan. 499, 867 P.2d 303; Poulin v. Colby College, 402 A.2d 846 (Me.1979); Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co. v. Flippo, 348 Md. 680, 705 A.2d 1144 (1998); Mounsey v. Ellard, 363 Mass. 693, 297 N.E.2d 43 (1973); Peterson, 294 Minn. 161, 199 N.W.2d 639; Heins, 250 Neb. 750, 552 N.W.2d 51; Ford v. Board of County Comm'rs, 118 N.M. 134, 879 P.2d 766 (1994); O'Leary, 251 N.W.2d 746; Ragnone v. Portland Sch. Dist. No. 1J, 291 Or. 617, 633 P.2d 1287 (1981); Tantimonico v. Allendale Mut. Ins. Co., 637 A.2d 1056 (R.I.1994); Hudson, 675 S.W.2d 699; Antoniewicz v. Reszcynski,