While returning to the office after lunch, I pulled up to a red light behind a big truck - not an 18 wheeler, but a big, garbage truck-sized truck.
The back of it said:
Let’s suppose that, as he pulled into the intersection, a piece of rubble fell out of the back and damaged my car. Is the company really not liable?
Do they really expect me to give them 300 feet of clearance?!?!
Educated guess - nope, the warning sign means nothing. This is an attempt to fend off lawsuits, rather than win them, much like the “problems with my driving? Call 555-dolt.” They want you to call them, so they can make appropriate soothing noises to you, and so you won’t call the cops.
Any motor vehicle must obey the laws of the road. One of those laws is that anything carried by a vehicle is secured. So, if you get slammed by a sofabed falling off the back of the garbage truck, you can sue them, whether you were 20 feet or 300 feet back. If you were tailgating, you might be held to have contributed to your injury, but that’s about it.
Sua (BTW, I am a lawyer, but I slept through most of my Refuse Removal Law class :D)
Agreed. I think there was a thread a while back about people givning their own little disclaimers absolving themselves of liability, and the consensus was that it was pretty much worth less than the paper it was written on most of the time.
IE: By reading this, we are not liable for anything that we may do that causes harm to you.
I guess kinda like the back of a hockey ticket.
A lot of companies seem to think they can disavow liability for negligence by simply announcing that they won’t be held liable: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR VEHICLES PARKED IN LOT. NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR VALUABLES LEFT IN ROOM. NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOSSES INCURRED IF FLIGHT IS LATE OR CANCELLED. Well, guess what? You, as an individual or a business, do not get to decide whether you are or are not responsible. If you acted negligently, and your negligence caused damages, then more likely than not you can be held responsible, no matter what you say. I think signs like that can serve to mitigate responsibility by placing some of it on the shoulders of the other party (“Didn’t you see the sign telling you to stay back? Then why didn’t you stay back?”), but they can’t absolve the negligent party from all liability. And, as you’ve pointed out, a lot of times they’re stupid: Stay back 300 feet? How is that possible if we’re driving in town? Don’t leave valuables in room? But even my clothes and toiletries have some value; am I supposed to pack them around with me? Don’t park in lot? What’s the parking lot for, if not for people to park in?
Sometimes people like to use “legalese” to try to create the impression that something is okay (or not okay), even when that something isn’t really grounded in the law. I think this is an example of that.
NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST, GARBLED, OR MULTIPLE POSTS.
You can borrow my notes. Only a month and a half into that class, and I’ve already damn near filled my notebook.
hehe
The liability waivers on the back of sports tickets are quite enforceable. A couple of years ago one of the guys in my office accepted tickets to the company’s clubhouse seats to a Diamondbacks game. Good seats, about three rows back from the fence on the third base line near the on-deck circle. No net. IIRC catcher Kelly Stinnet broke a bat and it landed in the his face. Severe craniofacial damage and multiple corrective surgeries. As sympathetic as the team was they couldn’t even offer an apology as it could be construed as an admission of liability.
FWIW I heard there is a new law in california allowing a defendant in a civil case to express sypathy without admitting guilt.
Hmm. Once again, not a legal expert here, but I would think that a “good” (if there is such a thing) lawyer may have liked a crack at that… or did he try?
Eric
…must …be …GOOD!
**
[sarcasm]
Isn’t that nice? They’ve made sympathy legal again!
[/sarcasm]
I’m with Jodi. All I would add is that I think sometimes those disclaimers are intended as a deterrent. If the injured party thinks the blame rests on himself, no lawsuit. Legal or not, the disclaimer did its job.
I think this is included under the posts that Sua and Jodi made. Your friend probably had no legal recourse because there was no negligence that led to his injury. If his seat had somehow broken and he had fallen on his face and recieved the same injuries, he may well have had a case, if he could show that the damage was due to negligence.
(I’m not a lawyer, but I play one when I watch tv)
“exculpatory clauses” can have different effects, depending on the context, the jurisdiction, etc.
And the language on the back of a hockey ticket, ski pass, or whatever, often can protect the arena, ski resort, etc. to a certain extent.
In many states, a ski resort operator (or whomever) is allowed to exculpate itself for simple negligence, but not gross negligence or intentional acts. Thus, if somebody did something outrageous enough, the arena operator might be on the hook, notwithstanding the language on the ticket.
As far as the sign on the back of the truck, I don’t think it would have much of an effect - how could it create a contract? In any event, I believe that the law in New Jersey is that a vehicle operator is strictly liable for damage caused by debris falling off the vehicle. I don’t think any disclaimer could change that.
standard disclaimers about legal advice . . .
IIRC, we went through this in another thread, as a previous responder to this post said. The responder’s memory about the conclusions in that older thread wasn’t right, though. Liability disclaimers in a contract (sports ticket, horseback stable contract, skydiving lesson agreement, health club contract, volleyball team waiver) * are * generally enforceable and can defeat simple negligence claims. These liabilty waivers generally do not work to defend against gross negligence (aka wilful and wanton wrongdoing) or intentional torts.
I do agree that the types of unilateral disclaimers cited in the OP and in the hotel example mentioned by Jodi most likely will not be enforced, because there has to be some indication by the (subsequently) injured party that he accepted the terms of the contract, either by signing it or accepting the benefit of the deal after being advised of the waiver.
There’s also some case law out there for the proposition that waivers only cover the types of injuries that could have reasonably been on the minds of the parties at the time of the agreement. For example, in a health club situation, a waiver would cover an injury suffered on a machine, or while lifting weights, or a slip and fall in the shower, but might not cover an injury caused by the roof falling in.
My state is Illinois, so YMMV elsewhere. (I’m fairly sure that most states aren’t too different from Illinis on this, though.)
I was going to say that I think those exculpatory clauses on the back of tickets only cover incidents normal to the event being attended and reasonably foreseen until I read Random’s post that there are cases to that effect. If the exculpatory clause is ineffective, I would think that the victim can recover regardless of negligence. There may not have been any negligence when the bat cracked, altho the batter probably hit the ball at the wrong spot on the bat. Nonetheless, I would think that recovery is possible on absolute liability theory or a high degree of care theory, as a ballpark or similar entities are, in a way, common carriers. I may be wrong and if anybody has any cites either for or against, I would be interested.
The difference between the situations here is, when you purchase a ticket, you agree to abide by the rules and regulations of the person holding the event; if you don’t agree to accept their guidelines, you can elect to not attend the event (like Cecil’s old column on whether its legal to search concertgoers for booze and drugs). When you’re driving behind a garbage truck, you have as much right to be there as they do, and they have no right to tell you you have to drive x feet behind them.
[Hijack]
On a related matter, I used to have a hobby making silk (i.e. fake) plants, and had some pretty good success selling a fake marijuana plant to teenagers via High Times magazine many years ago. We put a yellow disclaimer sticker on it saying that the purchaser agrees to not display the product in any place or way where police officers (or others who might take offense) would mistake it as being real and take action against them. We even specifically mentions they should not be left in a car or window. So my question is two fold:
If someone had their house raided, and/or was arrested by the police, could they have sued me?
Assuming the answer is ‘Yes’ for #1, does me specifically mentioning certain circumstances (i.e. don’t leave it in your car where a passing police officer might see it and mistake it for real) protect me if someone suffers damages in that exact scenario (i.e. cop breaks car window or has car towed at cost to owner)
[/Hijack]
what would they be arrested for? falsely trying to look like they’re committing a felony?
Possession of silk?
wring said
North Carolina General Statutes:
§ 90-95. Violations; penalties.
(a) Except as authorized by this Article, it is unlawful for any person:
. . .
(2) To create, sell or deliver, or possess with
intent to sell or deliver, a counterfeit controlled substance
§ 90-87.
6) “Counterfeit controlled substance” means:
. . .
b. Any substance which is by any means intentionally represented as a controlled substance. It is evidence that the substance has been intentionally misrepresented as a controlled substance if the following factors are established:
Back in '97 +/- someone won a suit against the tire manufacturer of their Bronco (some SUV anyway) because when the tire blew out they lost control of the vehicle, flipped over and I think someone was killed. The plaintiffs won something like $17 million. The tire manufacturer was held liable because they could have made tires which would remain more driveable than the ones currently on the vehicle. Now we have tires that will work with no internal air pressure.
Shouldn’t the guy with the face be able to sue the manufacturer of the bat? Why can’t they make a wooden bat that won’t shatter?
BTW the tires on the SUV were well beyond the legal tread depth limit.