Kimbar v. Estis

Paul Kimbar, age fourteen, was a camper at a children’s camp operated by defendants. At about nine o’clock one August evening, when it was quite dark, he left the recreation hall to go to his bunkhouse. He walked down two or three steps leading from the porch of the recreation hall to a pathway, somehow strayed off the path, collided with a tree and fractured his nose.

It is undisputed that this path was a well-beaten one, in constant use for years and wide enough to permit two people to walk abreast. The tree into which Paul walked was about two or three feet off the path, and, very…