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Connecticut Wall Climbing Waiver Fails
By Doyice Cotten In a 2014 case, a Connecticut Superior Court failed to enforce a pre-injury waiver signed by the plaintiff (Lecuna v. Carabiners Fairfield, LLC, 2014 Conn. Super LEXIS 2610). Plaintiff...
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Waiver Clearly Specifying Risks Enforced in NY Case
By Doyice Cotten Last Week’s Post (Admiralty Law Trumps GOL 5-326 Statute in NY Jet Boat Waiver Case) focused on fact that federal admiralty law supersede state law (including New York’s G.O.L....
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Sport Safety Statutes Can Affect the Effectiveness of Liability Waivers
By Doyice Cotten Most states have enacted at least one of what are sometimes called sport safety acts or shared responsibility statutes (e.g., equine, ski, whitewater rafting) intended to define or...
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Hawaii Statute Prohibiting Waivers Enforced in Scuba Case
By Doyice Cotten In a recent ruling, the U.S. District Court of Hawaii ruled that a liability waiver could not protect a scuba diving business from liability for negligence (Hambrook v. Smith, 2015)....
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For Protection under Assumption of Risk: Injured Party MUST Have Known the...
By Doyice Cotten One of the most commonly used defenses when someone is injured in a recreational activity is that the participant assumed the risks. While the law varies somewhat from state to state,...
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U.S. District Court Case Clouds Vermont Waiver Law
By Doyice Cotten Over the past 20 years four Vermont Supreme Court rulings have made Vermont waiver law relatively clear. A recent U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont ruling (Littlejohn v....
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Hawaii Case Illustrates Why Admiralty Law Can be Important to Recreation...
By Doyice Cotten Mark Strickert took his wife and two children on a snorkeling trip. He and his wife signed waivers on behalf of themselves and their children. The trip consisted of six scuba divers...
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Strengthen Assumption of Risk: Documentation of Notification of Warnings
I recently received an email from James Hellwege regarding risk management efforts of a provider in relation to the assumption of risks by the participants. It is encouraging when providers take...
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Liability Waivers are Prohibited in Louisiana! But Should Providers Continue...
By Doyice Cotten Brenda Fecke, a senior at LSU, fell while bouldering at the LSU Recreation Center indoor rock climbing wall facility. The fall resulted in an ankle injury; this was followed by a...
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We Know Delta and Greyhound are Common Carriers … But is a Zipline a Common...
By Doyice Cotten April Dodge was a paying customer of Grafton Zipline Adventures when the braking system failed causing April to collide with a tree and suffer injury. She sued alleging that Grafton...
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