Apparently skydiving places think they can kill me legally

[Muffin]

@RealityChuck

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.

It depends on the jurisdiction. In some places you can sign away your rights. In other places you can’t sign away your rights. Here is an article that explains public policy as it applies to waiving negligence, and that identifies certain states that void waivers of negligence for certain activities based on public policy: http://www.sportwaiver.com/why-a-waiver-may-fail-–-public-policy/

[Broomstick]

@YogSosoth

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?

I believe some places added that clause after some suicides involving skydiving places where relatives of the deceased sued the skydive facility because said relatives did something deliberately like using a carpet knife to cut themselves away form the parachute harness or something equally lethal.

[Flipshod]

generally you can’t waive your rights against an intentional tort–they were scaring you with that–but the fall from the sky had to be scarier than the legal BS

glad you made it back to earth safely

[Markxxx]

What you’re looking for is from Law101 and called Strict Liability

There are some things considered so dangerous, that neither good faith nor the fact that the defendant took all possible precautions are valid defenses

The example always given is the owner of a tiger. You can sign a billion waivers, but a tiger is so dangerous that the owner cannnot contract out of his liablity if anything happens to you while you’re visiting his tiger.

[anson2995]

@Bijou_Drains

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.

You are correct about the girl who was killed after being struck at an NHL game (her name was Brittanie Cecil). I don’t know if NHL teams have that waiver on their tickets.

I do know that baseball teams have the waiver on their tickets, and they have aggressively fought attempts by fans who have been struck by balls or bats from being compensated for their injuries. Here’s a cite from one article, but it’s not too hard to find dozens of others that say the same thing.

Fans who have brought litigation against baseball clubs for injuries due to batted balls and other projectiles have almost universally seen their cases dropped due to the assumption-of-risk doctrine. Every team that sees an injury at its stadium, no matter how serious, fights helping with medical costs because of the implications throughout the rest of the industry.

Assumption of Risk means that some things are inherently dangerous, and if you choose to participate you acknowledge that the risk exists because of the nature of the activity, not because of any negligence on the part of the team/stadium/skydiving company.

For example, baseballs fly off of bats and land in the stands, whether as home runs or foul balls. It’s part of the game, and it happens thousands of times during a Major League Baseball season. A safety risk which is that inherent in a sport raises the legal bar at which teams and stadium owners will be held liable for fan injuries.

When it comes to legal liability for injuries to spectators, courts have been reluctant to hold stadium owners and sports teams responsible for injuries that were a reasonably foreseeable result of the sport itself. This includes foul balls (even bats) flying into the crowd at a baseball game, and hockey pucks that sail over the rink’s safety glass and into the stands.

The bottom line in any legal action involving a spectator injury will likely come down to whether all reasonable steps were taken (and taken correctly) to protect fans from harm that – because of the nature of the sport the fan paid to see in person – may have been unavoidable.

[Muffin]

@Markxxx

What you’re looking for is from Law101 and called Strict Liability

But is skydiving that dangerous an activity that it attracts strict liability? I do not know the answer, but I doubt that it is that dangerous.

[MitzeKatze]

@dracoi

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.

I agree with this, but I think it might protect the client in yet another way that hasn’t been mentioned. With lengthy, well-worded waivers that disclaim liability for every single thing that could go wrong, the skydiver (or the next of kin) might just believe it and not bring suit in the case of injury or death.

[Cardinal]

This seems like the crowd to ask this of:

I recall that years ago the California courts ruled that skateboarding was an inherently dangerous activity (obvious to anyone), and the defense of “But I didn’t know what I was signing” didn’t give reasonable action against the skate park.

Now there is a skate bowl directly across the street from my old church in Ventura, CA, where there is just a sign requiring helmets (which few obey).

This, I was told, is the ruling that enabled skate parks to re-flourish. One of my HS friends now manages one in Ventura. It’s been about 15 years, and I’ve not heard of them being sued, and certainly they’re still operating.

Is this ruling reported correctly? Are there rulings similarly in other states?

[Muffin]

Immunity legislation, not judicial decisions, has led to the proliferation of community skateboard parks. The legislation usually protects against simple negligence, but not gross negligence. Dude, here is a most excellent article that discusses various states’ legislation: http://classweb.gmu.edu/jkozlows/lawarts/09SEP09.pdf

[bengangmo]

I would suspect that the waivers would protect against fairly common or foreseeable but low level accidents, or for accidents that were caused by something the “victim” did.

For example - in white water rafting it is fairly foreseeable that you may well sprain your wrist or get a few bruises. To then turn around and sue would put an unfair burden on the operator.

For those people that go against express instructions I would think the waiver would also offer some protection. As in the case of bungy jumping, when you do it you are not supposed to have a heart condition. If you do go ahead and bungy jump anyway, when the waiver specifically says you cannot jump with a heart condition, then the operator may have some protection?

But that’s just pulling crap outta my arse…

[Muffin]

@Spoons

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.

Very true.

Here is an article that compares a couple of cases where the success or failure of the waiver depended on whether or not the participants were informed of the risks and were not under pressure to participate in the dangerous element of the activity: http://classweb.gmu.edu/jkozlows/p&r398.htm

[Muffin]

A nice history of waivers in this Canadian judicial decision: http://www.canlii.org/eliisa/highlight.do?text=waiver+raft&language=en&searchTitle=Search+all+CanLII+Databases&path=/en/bc/bcsc/doc/1994/1994canlii2855/1994canlii2855.html

[AK84]

Alright.

1. First up, strict liability, this is not. Strict liability is when the mere fact of an act or ommission makes you liable, regardless of forseeability or efforts that you took. It is not this circumstances.

2. These are properly called “exclusion clauses”. Now juridictions vary greatly in their acceptance and implementation of exclusion clauses but generally a) you can’t exclude liability for death and serious personal injury and b) even besides those two, they have to meet criteria of reasonableness and notice, they must be reasonable in the circumstances and sufficient notice must have been brought, what constitutesn sufficient notice will vary according to the circumstances.

[Bearflag70]

This is not legal advice:

Here’s a California Supreme Court opinion on these things:

CITY OF SANTA BARBARA v. SUP. CT. (2007) 41 Cal.4th 747

You can access it here.

[R.P.McMurphy]

@YogSosoth

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.

You know, this totally changes the OP.

IANA lawyer but it is common to sign agreements absolving the business in the case of negligence. If you enter a sports tournament you will probably have to sign such an agreement.

However, there is a legal difference between negligence and gross negligence. I’ll leave it to a lawyer to explain the difference.

[md2000]

All these papers do is show that the provider of skydiving or whitewater rafting or playing in traffic has really informed you that this IS a risky business. When you sue, you say (or your heirs say for you) “I had no idea this was so dangerous and this could happen”. Common sense tells you something (foreseeable…). The amount they told you says something, and how they said it. The waiver adds to that by showing that you knew it was risky and acidents happen and you weren’t relying on them to keep you safe.* Sometimes parachutes don’t open, or you hit a bird while falling, or whatever - but no amount of waiver will prevent the school from responsibility for an improperly packed chute for example - unless maybe you packed it yourself and had the experience and ability, and the school knew that fact.

The waiver is just one more way the place can defend itself if it has to.

A ski hill I once worked at frequently paid out for cleaning ski coats. When eatehr got warm, melting snow from the pulleys would drip a bit of greasy black water onto skiers using the T-bar. WOuld you have expected that? No. Hence - no contest.

• When I watch those reality shows, my wife asks - would I jump off a building or rappel down a cliff or bungee jump? I reply that you can see the safety harnesses and other gear, the TV company has made it excessively safe, you’re not going to get significantly injured. Maybe that’s my expectation of safety; a lawyer for the TV company would have to show that that was not a reasonable expectation if one of their contestants were seriously injured, to escape liability. OTOH, your average skydiving or bungee place does not probably put that much effort into safety, since suing them for a billion dollars would be a waste of time.

[Valgard]

@md2000

OTOH, your average skydiving or bungee place does not probably put that much effort into safety, since suing them for a billion dollars would be a waste of time.

I will take issue with that. While there are certainly some dodgy dropzones out there, the majority place a very high premium on safety, especially where students are concerned. There is no business advantage in having your customers injured or killed.

Virtually all of the training is aimed squarely at “How to do this safely”. While few DZs are sitting on massive piles of spare cash they care for their equipment (rigs, planes and everything else) since this is a gear-intensive sport.