Is your Christmas tree up? Are the stockings hung by the chimney with care? Have your children sent Santa their letters, asking for gifts? If so, make sure that you take care to check around the floor for stray ornaments and tuck the presents that you've laid out for others in a tidy pile. Otherwise, you could end up on the receiving end of a lawsuit, should the merry old fellow end up injured while he's there from a slip and fall or some other accident. Here's why you have a certain obligation to ensure Santa's safety:

You owe a special duty of care to any invited guest.

Under premise liability laws, you owe visitors to your property a certain duty of care for their well-being. If you hadn't invited Santa by sending out the letters and hanging up your stockings for him to fill, his presence in your house would make him a trespasser. You'd only be responsible for warning him about known dangers if you're aware of his presence when he's in your house. Since he's a social guest, there by your invitation, you are responsible for his safety while he's there. 

You should take care of obvious hazards to your guests.

Should Santa get injured while trying to deliver your little tykes their toys, the court will look at a number of questions:

• Did you know about the hazard in advance of Santa's visit?
• Would it have been reasonable to expect you to check for such a hazard ahead of the visit?
• Would an ordinary person recognize whatever caused Santa's accident as a hazard in advance?
• Did you warn Santa of the hazard before he was injured?
• Was Santa behaving in an ordinary fashion, as expected, for the visit?
• Did Santa stray into areas that he should not have been and wasn't expected to enter?

These are the same questions that would be considered with any social guest on your property. Due to the unique nature of Santa's expected activities, however, you would want to take precautions that you (probably) don't need to take with your ordinary visitors during the year.

For example, you'd normally expect your houseguests to park in your driveway and enter through the front door. In winter, it would be prudent to make sure that you clear a path through any ice and snow. You'd always want to make sure that your steps are safe in front of your door.

In Santa's case, since he's known to park on rooftops, you might want to peek at your roof and make sure that there are no loose shingles on which he could trip and tumble. If you have a chimney through which Santa is expected to enter, make sure that you don't leave hot embers in the fireplace when you go to bed for the night. If you don't have a fireplace and expect Santa to use his magic key to gain entry, make sure that there is a clear path from the door to the tree and leave a lamp burning so that he doesn't trip over a footstool on the way. If you leave out cookies and milk for the old fellow, consider adding some ice to the milk so that it doesn't spoil and give Santa food poisoning.

Hopefully, your holiday will go without incident and all the guests that you entertain this season will safely enjoy their visits to your home. If there's an accident, however, talk to an attorney like one from Gartner Law Firm as soon as possible about the situation.