Litigating Injury Cases Involving Waivers

If your client is injured somewhere that requires them to sign a waiver before entering, here’s an easy strategy:

Why did your client have to sign a waiver? Because the activity is dangerous, right?

The defense witness will admit that and often times the waivers will talk about how dangerous the activity is (as will numerous other documents the defense produces).

The degree of care should correspond to the degree of danger. So what did the defendant do to make the activity as safe as possible?

Often times defendants—particularly trampoline parks and other amusement centers—are staffed by students who have little to no knowledge of safety rules. And the supervisors are oftentimes not much better.

You can use the waivers and the defense’s allegations of your client’s assumption of the risk to your advantage by showing the defense didn’t do anything to address a known safety hazard.

In Georgia, even when there’s a pre-injury waiver, you can recover for gross negligence. You can make a compelling case that failing to reduce or eliminate a known safety hazard is gross negligence.

What do you think? Join the conversation with me on LinkedIn.