Wrinkle v. Norman

Wrinkle (plaintiff), seeing the Normans' (defendants) cattle straying toward the highway, herded them through an open gate into the Normans' yard, where a calf became tangled in a clothesline and started choking; Wrinkle freed the calf, which then bolted, and the loosened clothesline knocked him backward onto concrete, breaking his back. He sued for negligence over the dangerous clothesline-and-gate condition. The lower courts granted summary judgment for the Normans, treating Wrinkle as owed no more duty than a trespasser, since no evidence showed the Normans even owned the cattle he was trying to protect.

Whether a landowner owes a duty of reasonable care to someone who must enter the landowner's property without permission to prevent serious harm.