Sport Waiver Risk Fitness Law

May 22, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ –
In 2008, the Florida Supreme Court held that parents who sign liability waivers allowing their children to participate in risky adventure activities are endangering their children’s property and estate, and therefore not acting in their children’s best interest.  As the court noted, child liability waivers protect businesses at the expense of children, which hardly seems a reasonable balancing of interests.
Accordingly, the Florida Supreme Court held that in the absence of a statute clearly permitting child liability waivers, these waivers were unenforceable.  However, recently the Florida legislature …

This article by Alexander “Sandie” Pendleton addresses some of the concerns regarding the validity of online waivers. Mr Pendleton is with Kohner, Mann, and Kailis of Milwaukee.
Do courts enforce waiver agreements that are entered into electronically, for instance, via an online registration process? Or instead, will courts only find an agreement enforceable if the agreement is printed on a real piece of paper and signed in ink in the traditional manner?
The above questions raise a host of issues. . .     Click here to read the entire article.

This article by Alexander “Sandie” Pendleton sums up some key issues involved in the recent Woodman v. Kera (2010) case in which the Michigan Supreme Court held parental waivers to be unenforceable. A five-year-old was injured in an inflatable bounce area at a birthday party. Mr. Pendleton is with Kohner, Mann & Kailas, S.C. in Milwaukee.
The Michigan Supreme Court on June 18, 2010 issued its long-awaited decision in Woodman v. Kera, holding that under Michigan law waiver-of-liability forms signed by parents on behalf of minors are unenforceable.
Key to …

In a 2008 case (Stephenson v. Food Bank for New York City), Devone Stephenson alleged that the league was negligent in its supervision, operation, and control of the basketball game in which he was injured. Stephenson suffered a broken jaw when an opponent suddenly punched him in the face. Stephenson alleged that there was rough play, taunting, and “trash talk” throughout the game even though his team captain asked the referees to clean up the game.
The league claimed that Stephenson had released the league from liability when he completed an …

The Cohen v. Five Brooks Stable court (2008 Cal. App. LEXIs 222) gave some sound advice to writers of waivers. While acknowledging that California courts hold releases of liability to a high standard of clarity, the court emphasized that “An effective release is hard to draft only if the party for whom it is prepared desires to hide the ball, which is what the law is designed to prevent. . . . A release that forthrightly makes clear to a person untrained in the law that the releasor gives up …