Interesting Article from the Sadler Sports & Recreation Website
Are Waiver/Releases Worth the Paper on Which They’re Written?
As a sports insurance specialist and risk manager, I often wondered about the answer to this question myself because of all the contradictory information on this topic. To satisfy my curiosity, I interviewed claims managers from the two leading sports insurance providers in the U.S. After all, they actually settle and litigate hundreds of these cases every year. I also interviewed two attorneys who specialize in this area on behalf of their sports and recreation clients.
A waiver/release agreement has two primary protective purposes:
1) Contractual exculpation, which uses contract law principles (waivers and releases are contracts) to excuse a sports organization for its simple negligence; and
2) Providing real evidence of the sports organization’s warning of inherent and other risks thereby triggering the common-law assumption of risk (AOR) defense under tort law.
Read the complete article here:
www.sadlersports.com/riskmanagement/sports-insurance-waiverrelease.php