Which term describes a person who enters onto land for the owner's financial benefit?

• A. Invitee
• B. Licensee
• C. Express license
• D. Trespasser

Answer: (A)

Entering land for the owner’s financial benefit marks a business invitee. In premises liability, this status carries the highest duty of care for the landowner: exercise reasonable care to keep the premises safe, inspect for hazards, and repair or warn about known dangers, including latent hazards that the invitee wouldn’t discover on their own. A person in this situation is there to benefit the business, such as a customer or contractor.

A licensee, by contrast, enters with the owner’s permission but not for the owner’s financial gain, so the duty is limited to warning about known hazards and not necessarily inspecting for unknown dangers. An express license is simply a type of permission to enter, still making the entrant a licensee rather than an invitee. A trespasser enters without permission, and the duty owed is the least intense—generally to avoid intentional harm and not to create dangerous conditions.