An invitee is someone on the property for a purpose the owner benefits from, a customer in a store, and owners owe invitees the highest duty of care, liable for dangers they knew or reasonably should have known about. A licensee is on the property for their own purposes with the owner’s consent, a social guest, and can only recover for dangers the owner actually knew about and failed to address. A trespasser is on the property without permission and can generally only recover if the owner willfully or deliberately caused their injury.
Why this classification decides so much
The same broken step can mean a strong case for an invitee and almost no case at all for a trespasser, even though the injury is identical. Figuring out which category actually applies, and pushing back when an insurer tries to argue for the lower one, is often the single biggest factor in how a premises case turns out.
What to do next
If this is where you are right now, call Mile High Legal at (720) 853-5779 for a free consultation. We handle Colorado injury claims on contingency, meaning you pay nothing upfront and nothing at all unless we recover money for you.
