To Waiver or not to Waiver

I got to be part of a conversation recently on the issue of waivers.  It brought back some memories of when I was in college.  As part of the degree I earned in recreation at Central Michigan University, I was required to take a risk management class.  One of the topics that garnered a lot of attention was the idea of waivers.  There were two factions in the class on each side of the issue of making a group sign waivers or not. 

 

One of the things that we learned in this class early on was that in Michigan, as with most other states, a properly written, signed waiver is not admissible as evidence in court.  The only thing that it does is provide some substance if you are trying to claim that the participant was aware of the risk inherent in the activity.  The problem is that if the waiver is written incorrectly, it can be used as evidence against the agency.  

 

Anyone who has ever read one of these release forms knows that they can be full of jargon and difficult to understand.  It is also easy to misinterpret what is written in them, all things that will go against the agency in court.   So why do we use them? 

 

The reasons that we came up with in the class were:

 

1)    Peace of mind for the Client – A properly written waiver allows clients to know some of the risks before they participate and can better help them decide their level of participation.

2)    Protection for the Agency – As long as the form is properly written (usually involving lawyers of some sort) then it can go a long way to proving that the client was aware of risks involved in participation.

3)    We decided that if we were judging a case, the fact that a wavier was present at all, rather than not, would go a long way on the agency’s behalf.

 

What do you think?  Does your agency require waivers?  Do you think that they protect you in case of a lawsuit?  Have you ever been involved in a lawsuit in which a waiver helped or hurt you?  Talk about it in the comments section.