A few years ago, I went skydiving with some friends. It was an enjoyable experience but one (ok, actually two, but the vomit has nothing to do with this question) thing stuck out in my mind:
Before we were allowed to skydive, we all had to sign an agreement absolving the company from any legal responsibility in case of death, even, and I remember this clearly, if the equipment was deliberately tampered with and faulty. They also videotaped each of us reading a prepared statement saying that we were going skydiving of our own volition and agree not to sue in case something should happen.
Being dumb kids, we all signed it and had a blast.
But are the documents we signed of any legal value? I am unaware of any instance where one can sign away your right to sue even in cases of deliberate maliciousness. I would have understood if it simply said they couldn’t be held responsible if the equipment was faulty, that would probably be on the manufacturers, but the part about deliberate tampering of the equipment got me.
Do they have any legal standing for you to waive your rights in this way? And if any of you have skydived before, is this standard procedure in all skydiving places?
Risky sports normally have those types of waivers to sign but I have never seen a video for that. I’ve signed one for whitewater rafting and kayaking. I don’t remember anything on the waivers about damaged equipment, that part seems really shaky but I am not a lawyer.
I have done indoor rock climbing and while the waiver is not quite as extreme as what you describe it does say stuff like you agree not to sue even if you are injured or killed do to negligence by their staff. In my experience most high risk activities have similar releases, but I don’t know how much legal weight they hold.
I used to skydive a little bit. I had to sign a waiver promising not to sue them even if they are negligent. However, I don’t recall it saying anything about equipment that have been deliberately tampered with, and I think this is something that I would have remembered if it was there. There was no video taping either.
Sporting event tickets also have a legal waiver on the back saying you can’t sue if a ball or bat or puck hits you but I am pretty sure that legally those are worthless. A girl got hit by a puck at a NHL game and died and her family got a settlement from the team.
Maybe you guys are right and it said negligence instead of deliberate tampering, it was a few years ago and my memory was fuzzy. Still, it seems fishy to me.
A company can not sign away it’s liability. It’s like the nonsense on the back of a parking lot ticket. It’s meaningless to say they absolve themselves from any liability to your car.
It is however, legal to try and trick you into believing it.
Usually a properly drafted and properly executed sports waiver signed by participants who have capacity, understand the risks, and have time to make a considered decision without any pressure from anyone, will stand up if there is simple negligence, but will not stand up if there is gross negligence. As far as deliberate tampering goes, I expect that would not stand up due to being void for policy.
I seem to recall also a few cases where the release did not hold up because of the conditions under which it was signed. Being kitted out in the necessary equipment, while watching the plane warming up in the background (or boat being loaded with scuba gear, or bungee cord being reeled in for the next jumper, or whatever) and being told to read a release full of dense legalese before signing it, after which you’re good to go; would seem to me to create a situation where the invalidity of the release would certainly be arguable. Such arguments might include things like “insufficient time to read and understand the release,” and/or “inability, at the time and place in question, to get proper advice on what the document actually means,” and/or “being told to ‘just sign the damn thing so we can get going’.”
Now, with that being said, I would imagine that if conditions differed from the above such that the person wasn’t distracted by time and equipment and so on, then I’d guess that the release would protect the company from simple negligence. In spite of this, though, I must agree with Muffin: probably not against gross negligence.
One more thought: If there is in fact a death caused by intentional equipment tampering, I imagine the prosecutor will be stepping in and this will become a criminal matter. Someone is going to jail for that…
Yes, releases like that are totally normal although like others said I certainly don’t recall any language about “deliberate tampering”. I have no idea how legally enforceable they are but I have to imagine that someone who sprains their ankle and then tries to go to court and claim that nobody told them that there was any risk will look at least somewhat foolish when presented with their signed form stating they understand they are doing something risky.
There was at least one DZ in southern California that used to have students read part of the waiver on camera, not just sign & initial everything.
The only legal issues arising out of skydiving that I have any personal knowledge of are on the payment side - we had some guys decide that they were going to cancel their checks after taking the first-jump course. The owner took them to small-claims court and won.
I have only ever heard of one instance of intentional sabotage - it happened at a DZ I used to go to. The owners’ son was a world champion and somebody borrowed his gear to jump. The main had been cut in a very inconspicuous spot and the reserve had been carefully sabotaged to prevent it from opening while being very difficult to spot the monkeying.
The guy who borrowed the gear lived through some miracle. Thought was that someone had a murderous grudge against the son and tried to do him in, although after the fact it was obvious that the gear had been sabotaged. IIRC it was being investigated as attempted murder.
This brings to mind hostages reading prepared statements in favor of their captors.
I am sure it would hold up legally against minor suits, but if the instructor deliberately packed an anvil instead of a parachute*, then it would still be their liability.
*Of course this happens, I saw it on a cartoon once.
I find it interesting someone mentioned the ‘hurry things along’ issue with not being given enough time to read the thing. I went white water rafting on the American River a year ago, and while the company itself didn’t force you to sign the waiver in a big hurry, the other people on the trip certainly did. For some reason, the other groups were in a big hurry to get going and essentially harassed the other people to ‘just sign it’. Ultimately there were no problems, but I wondered at the time if something had gone terribly wrong, if one could blame the company for that after the fact when it was really the other customers being jerks.
In my state, liability waivers are completely, 100%, not-worth-the-paper-they’re-printed-on, non-binding (with one exception for ski areas), and yet you still see them everywhere. From what I understand even in states where they can be binding in some situations, it’s exceedingly rare that they ever are actually a defense in a situation where there’s been some genuine negligence.
So with this in mind, I suspect that most of them are NOT crafted by lawyers, but rather by paranoid buisness owners who erroneously believe that it might help deflect liability (though perhaps paranoia in this regard is understandable if one is in the skydiving buisness). Perhaps there’s also an aspect of hoping that if someone does hurt themselves they’ll just figure “oh, gee… I signed the waiver” and won’t consult an attorney.
For folks wanting to scope out the difference between simple negligence and gross negligence in a sports context, here is a blog with a bucket full of such cases: http://defendingsportsblog.com/
Are you sure the deliberate tampering clause referred to the company doing the tampering rather than the diver? If you think of that clause in light of a parachutist who might say “I went skydiving once before and now I know everything. I’m just going to make a few adjustments to my parachute to improve the ride down,” it makes a lot of sense as a way to prevent a lawyer from arguing that the company was responsible for making sure you didn’t screw up your own gear.
To GreasyJack: I think those waivers are created by lawyers. Lawyers want to provide their client with the absolute most protection possible. If three pages of overly generous waivers are thrown out by a judge, the lawyer’s client isn’t any worse off than someone who left those waivers out of the contract. But, there’s always the possibility that a judge will decide to uphold a waiver. At the cost of a few pieces of paper, the lawyer will happily hope for that remote chance, just in case.
You can’t sign away your rights. The document can make it harder to sue them, since you can’t argue that you didn’t know the sport was dangerous. But it does not allow them to be negligent. The disclaimer only shows that you were aware of the dangers, but has no legal bearing in cases of actual negligence.
Back when I was a part of the organising and promoting of motor sport events I was informed that these waiver notices had to be printed on each and every ticket otherwise we wouldn’t be covered by the insurance. It had nothing to do with informing people they had no right to sue, it was just a deterrent which the insurance companies insisted on having before they would cover the event. Why would you have insurance if you couldn’t be sued?
