¶1[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *1071
¶2The plaintiffs — Randy Tuders; James Tuders; Larry Nance, individually and as personal representative of the estate of Bobbi Jo Nance, deceased; and Anita Hicks, individually and as mother of Amanda Hicks and Kyle Hicks, deceased minors — appeal from a summary judgment entered in favor of the defendant, Paul Kell, doing business as Kell Realty Company. We affirm.
¶4Kell had drawn a sketch of the boathouse he wanted and then had hired someone to build it for him. The plaintiffs testified that it was apparent that the boathouse was under construction. It had a roof, but the outside walls were incomplete. Bracing had been used to stabilize the walls of the boathouse during its construction; however, the bracing had been removed from the north wall before the construction was complete and before the boaters took shelter there. The evidence does not indicate who removed the bracing from the boathouse.
¶5Randy Tuders, James Tuders, Larry Nance, and Anita Hicks filed a wrongful-death and personal-injury complaint against Kell and others.1 They alleged that the defendants had negligently caused the deaths and personal injures incurred in the July 4, 1995, incident. The trial court entered a summary judgment in favor of Kell, holding that the boaters were trespassers on Kell's property; that the only duty Kell owed to the boaters was to refrain from wantonly or intentionally injuring them; that the plaintiffs did not present substantial evidence indicating that Kell had wantonly or intentionally injured them; and that §§ 35-15-1 to -5, Ala. Code 1975, shielded Kell from any liability in this case. The plaintiffs appealed. All defendants other than Kell have been dismissed.
¶7Section 35-15-1 states:
¶8 "An owner, lessee or occupant of premises owes no duty of care to keep such premises safe for entry and use by others for hunting, fishing, trapping, camping, water sports, hiking, boating, sight-seeing, caving, climbing, rappelling or other recreational purposes or to give any warning of hazardous conditions, use of structures or activities on such premises to persons entering for the above-stated purposes, except as provided in section 35-15-3."
¶9This section refers to the rights of "persons entering" for certain activities (hunting, fishing, etc.). Section 35-15-1 does not specify whether the legislature intended that the "persons entering" were doing so lawfully. Section 35-15-3, cross-referenced in § 35-15-1, deals with the activities in the context of permission given for such use. Section 35-15-2 also deals with the effect of permission given for such activities. The principles of statutory construction require that we construe statutes dealing with the same subject matter in pari materia. Lambert v. Wilcox County Comm'n, 623 So.2d 727 (Ala. 1993). Furthermore, those principles call for us to refrain from using a strained or unnatural construction during the process of interpretation. Hall v. Underwood, 258 Ala. 392, 63 So.2d 683 (1953). See, also, Opinion of the Justices No. 368, 716 So.2d 1149 (Ala. 1998). We therefore hold that in § 35-15-1, the legislature, in speaking of "recreational purposes," was speaking of activities carried on or conducted by persons lawfully on the premises of the "owner, lessee or occupant."
¶10This Court has previously given such a construction to the recreational-use statute. See Wright v. Alabama Power Co.,355 So.2d 322 (Ala. 1978), where this Court stated:
¶11 "The [recreational-use statute] was intended to [ensure] that landowners were not to be held to a standard of due care toward persons upon their land with permission for hunting, fishing and recreational purposes. . . . The legislation [gives] persons upon the land with permission or invitation, but for purposes unrelated to the owner's business, . . . the status of licensees[,] with the [landowner's] duty being the duty owed to licensees."
¶12355 So.2d at 324 (emphasis added). Although the recreational-use statute does not require that, for the statute to apply, the landowner must have given the general public permission to use the land, it is necessary that the landowner have given permission to the person or persons using the land to use it for recreational purposes. It is undisputed that Kell had not given anyone permission to use his land, pier, or boathouse. Therefore, Kell is not entitled to the immunity provided by the recreational-use statute.
¶13We note that § 35-15-3 provides that the recreational-use statute "does not limit *1073 the liability which otherwise exists for [willful] or malicious failure to guard or warn against a dangerous condition, use, structure or activity." As we discuss in Part IV of this opinion, Kell's conduct in regard to the incident of July 4, 1995, was neither willful nor malicious. Furthermore, the landowner's liability recognized by §35-15-3 (liability "for [willful] or malicious failure to guard or warn") is premised upon someone's using real property after the "owner, lessee or occupant" has given permission to use the land for recreation — that circumstance is far removed from the situation presented in this case, where the plaintiffs claim they and the other boaters had permission implied by law pursuant to the "doctrine of necessity." The recreational-use statute applies to landowners who have given express permission for their land to be used for recreational purposes.
¶15The plaintiffs argue that one who seeks shelter on another's land because of an emergency should be considered an "implied licensee," rather than a trespasser, pursuant to the "doctrine of necessity." The plaintiffs argue that under the principles stated in Restatement (Second) of Torts § 330 (1965), a person who enters another's land because of an emergency or necessity may enter under an "implied license." Kell points out that Alabama courts have not adopted Restatement § 330. He argues that because he was not present when the boaters came onto his property, did not extend any invitation to them to come onto his pier or into his boathouse, and did not know they were present, they were trespassers.
¶16A marine patrol officer who had been stationed on Neely Henry Lake for approximately 30 years testified that the storm that arose on July 4, 1995, was the worst storm he had ever seen on that lake. Clearly, the boaters could not have reached their destination before the storm overtook them, so they sought shelter on the nearest property. According to the testimony presented, it is not unusual for boaters on Neely Henry Lake to do that. Kell testified that he had sought shelter on a stranger's land during a storm, but said he had taken shelter only on the land, not on a pier or near a building.
¶17Section 330, Restatement (Second) of Torts, states the principle that "[a] licensee is a person who is privileged to enter or remain on land only by virtue of the possessor's consent." The Restatement recommends, however, that courts recognize a license implied by custom:
¶18 "`The well-established usages of a civilized and Christian community' entitle everyone to assume that a possessor of land is willing to permit him to enter for certain purposes until a particular possessor expresses unwillingness to admit him. Thus a traveler who is overtaken by a violent storm or who has lost his way, is entitled to assume that there is no objection to his going to a neighboring house for shelter or direction. So too, if there is a local custom for possessors of land to permit others to enter it for particular purposes, residents in that locality and others knowing of the custom are justified in regarding a particular *1074 possessor as conversant with it and, therefore, in construing his neglect to express his desire not to receive them as a sufficient manifestation of a willingness to admit them."
¶19Section 330, cmt. e.
¶20We need not decide in this case whether to recognize a privilege implied by custom to enter another's land in a case of emergency or necessity. Even if we assume that the boaters were licensees and not trespassers (see our discussion in Part IV), we must conclude that Kell did not breach any duty he would have owed them. It follows that he also did not breach any duty he would have owed the boaters as trespassers.3
¶21 "The duty owed by a landowner to a licensee is to abstain from willfully or wantonly injuring the licensee and to avoid negligently injuring the licensee after the landowner discovers a danger to the licensee. This duty is not an active one to safely maintain the premises; instead, the landowner has the duty not to set traps or pitfalls and not to willfully or wantonly injure the licensee."
¶22Hambright, 638 So.2d at 868 (citations omitted).
¶23The plaintiffs argue that if this Court determines that the boaters were licensees, then Kell's removal of the bracing on the boathouse wall must be considered to have been "willful" and "wanton" because, they say, the bracing on the boathouse wall was a "safety device" — i.e., they say his removal of that "safety device" constituted wantonness. The plaintiffs rely on Henderson v. Alabama Power Co., 627 So.2d 878 (Ala. 1993), wherein this Court concluded that Alabama Power Company's modification of a safety device on a transmission tower could be analogized to the removal of a safety device from machinery in a workers' compensation context, an action that can be considered willful conduct on the part of an employee who removes it. If an employee is injured by machinery from which a safety device has been removed, then the injured employee has a cause of action against the culpable co-employee pursuant to § 25-5-11, Ala. Code 1975. In Henderson, a minor child trespassing on Alabama Power's property came into contact with a power line; he suffered second-degree burns because Alabama Power had modified a safety device. This Court held that whether Alabama Power's modification of the safety device constituted wantonness was a question of fact. The plaintiffs argue that whether Kell or an agent of his acted wantonly in removing the bracing is a question of fact for a jury to resolve and, thus, that the summary judgment was improper.
¶24Kell argues that the bracing provided for a building under construction is not within the meaning of the term "safety device" as that term is used in § 25-5-11. He further argues that, even if the bracing can be considered a safety device, the removal of a safety device on private property does not, by itself, constitute wantonness. In Henderson, Kell says, the plaintiff presented evidence indicating that the power company knew that injury was likely to result from the modification of the safety device on its tower, but, he argues, no comparable evidence is present in this case.
¶25In Henderson, this Court applied the statutory definition of "willful conduct" as it relates to co-employees in the workplace, see § 25-5-11(c), as a foundation for determining whether wanton conduct could *1075 be found in a case where the defendant was a public utility regularly engaged in activities subject to the workers' compensation laws. Since deciding Henderson, this Court has not applied that particular statutory definition as a means of determining whether wantonness could be found in any case outside the workers' compensation context. We conclude that we should not resort to the statutory definition of "willful conduct" relating to co-employees in the workplace as a foundation for defining "wanton conduct" in the substantially dissimilar situation where the question is the liability of a landowner to licensees for injuries sustained during a quite unexpected visit to a construction site on the landowner's property.
¶26Notwithstanding that the definition provided by the Workers' Compensation Act does not apply here, we still must consider whether the removal of the bracing could be found to constitute a violation of the duty Kell would have owed to the boaters if, as they argue, they were licensees, i.e., the duty not to set "traps or pitfalls," not to wantonly injure them, and not to negligently injure them after he discovered a danger to them.
¶27 "A `trap' is a danger that a person who does not know the premises could not avoid by the use of reasonable care. Wantonness has been defined as the conscious doing of some act or conscious omission of some duty by one who has knowledge of the existing conditions and who is conscious that doing, or failing to do, some act will probably result in injury."
¶28Hambright, 638 So.2d at 868 (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
¶29The plaintiffs acknowledge that the boaters recognized the boathouse to be in an incomplete state of construction when they chose to seek shelter under it during what apparently was the worst storm on Neely Henry Lake in 30 years. We are persuaded by the reasoning of Helvich v. George A. Rutherford Co., 96 Ohio App. 367,114 N.E.2d 514 (1953), regarding the circumstances presented by unfinished construction:
96 Ohio App. at 381, 114 N.E.2d at 522. By the use of reasonable care, the boaters would have avoided resort to the shelter of an incomplete structure, in favor of the nearby shore. When reasonable care would lead one to avoid potential dangers, there is no trap. Hambright, 638 So.2d at 868.¶30 "When a property is under construction, there are, of necessity, hazards created as the work progresses which are only eliminated by its completion. Anybody who goes upon such property with knowledge that it is under construction must meet with and guard himself against such natural and necessarily created dangers. A contractor is not compelled in the exercise of ordinary care, to guard against such natural dangers after the work day is over and the property is closed for ordinary purposes to business visitors, licensees or frequenters."
¶31We find no evidence in the record that remotely suggests Kell set a "trap" or a "pitfall" for the boaters or that he consciously removed the bracing from the boathouse with the knowledge that his doing so probably would result in injury. Indeed, Randy Tuders and Larry Nance both testified that they knew of no evidence indicating that Kell intentionally or maliciously caused the collapse of the boathouse. The plaintiffs argue, however, that if they were licensees and if Kell's actions were not wanton, then, still, he owed them a duty not to expose them to a "new hidden danger" that they say resulted from negligence on his part as a landowner; they argue that the removal of the bracing on the boathouse wall was an affirmative act that exposed them to a "new hidden danger," and they argue that they should be allowed to pursue a negligence claim against Kell. Kell argues, in response, that he did not know the boaters were on his property and therefore could *1076 not have discovered that they were in danger.
¶32As previously noted, the boaters knew they were entering an area of unfinished construction and were entering it in the middle of a severe storm. One has no duty to warn a licensee of open and obvious defects. Williams v. Bruno's, Inc., 632 So.2d 19 (Ala. 1993); Graveman v. Wind Drift Owners' Ass'n, Inc., 607 So.2d 199 (Ala. 1992). In Copeland v. Pike Liberal Arts School, this Court stated that the landowner's duty to a licensee "was not to willfully or wantonly injure him and not to allow him to be negligently injured after becoming aware of his peril." 553 So.2d at 103 (emphasis added). The Court further stated:
¶33 "`This duty [to refrain from exposing a licensee to new hidden dangers] does not restrict the owner or possessor's right to make use of the property or to make such changes therein as he may desire, but requires him, if he does any positive act creating a new danger to a person who may exercise the license, to give to such licensee reasonable notice or warning of the new danger or to exercise reasonable care to provide safeguards against such new danger.'"
¶34Id. (quoting W.S. Fowler Rental Equip. Co. v. Skipper, 276 Ala. 593,600, 165 So.2d 375, 382 (1963)). There is no dispute that Kell did not discover that the boaters had been present on his land, much less that they had been in any peril, until after the boathouse had already collapsed. Therefore, even assuming that the boaters were licensees, we conclude that the evidence does not indicate that Kell breached any duty he owed a licensee.
¶37Under ordinary conditions, trespassing children occupy the same status as trespassing adults. Copeland v. Pike Liberal Arts School, 553 So.2d at 102. A limited exception to this rule exists under certain circumstances when the child is injured by an "attractive nuisance" or an "artificial condition" on the property. See Hollis v. Norfolk Southern Ry., 667 So.2d 727 (Ala. 1995); Motes v. Matthews, 497 So.2d at 1123. In each of these cases, the trespassing children either were alone or were accompanied only by other children. The Court's research has not revealed any cases in which a landowner was held liable for injuries to a trespassing child who was accompanied by an adult. In one case dealing with a child who was accompanied by a parent, Williamson v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 626 So.2d 1261 (Ala. 1993), this Court held that a landowner could not be held liable for injuries to a minor child who was brought onto the premises by his father, because it was unforeseeable, as a matter of law, that the father would allow his child to be placed in, and to remain in, a position of danger. Although the situation in the instant case is different in some respects, we do not believe the principles of law applicable to unaccompanied children should be applied to children accompanied by responsible adults.
¶39AFFIRMED.
¶40Hooper, C.J., and Maddox, Houston, Cook, See, Brown,* and Johnstone,* JJ., concur.
¶41*Although Justice Brown and Justice Johnstone were not members of this Court when this case was orally argued, they have listened to the tape of oral argument.