THE OCCUPIER'S LIABILITY
The liability to visitors is covered by the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 and the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1984. The 1957 Act deals with lawful visitors and the 1984 Act deals with trespassers. The occupier means the person in control of the land, building, premises, shop, warehouse, car park etc – in fact, the 1957 Act has even been held to cover ships, hovercraft, scaffolding and quaysides, the scope is quite wide indeed. The ‘occupier’ might be a local authority, a company, an individual or a partnership. The acknowledged test for ‘occupation’ can be found in the case of Wheat –v- Lacon [1966] AC 552. It was said ...... “Wherever a person has a sufficient degree of control over premises that he ought to realise that any failure on his part to use care may result in injury to a person lawfully there ......” S2 (2) of the Act is quite clear, it states ...... “The common duty of care is a duty to take such care as in all the circumstances of the case is reasonable to see that the vi