In the day and age we live in, most companies have you sign a liability waiver. Whether that is taking a ride with an Uber or Lyft, getting on a roller coaster or playing laser tag, companies have you sign on the dotted line before you are able to enjoy these luxuries, as a car accident lawyer, like from Andrew R. Lynch, P.C., can explain.
A liability waiver, also known as a release of liability, is a document you sign from a company that effectively protects that company from being sued if you get injured while using their product or service. Most people do not read the fine print when signing these legal documents and are in essence signing away their rights and liability to sue.
When signing a liability waiver, you release a company or organization from being responsible for any injury you may get from using their service or product. In most cases, you are waiving liability from ordinary negligence and gross negligence. Ordinary negligence is when unsafe situations occur even when a company has taken precautions to sustain a safe environment. Gross negligence is when a provider knows there are unsafe or hazardous risks involved in their service and take no actions to correct it aifor the customer’s safety.
Before you sign a liability waiver you should understand why the service company is asking you to sign this document. There are normally two main reasons a company has you sign a liability waiver. First, they need to document that you have been warned about the potential risk or risks associated with using their product or service and secondly, to release any responsibility of injury that can occur due to ordinary negligence. By knowing this information you can better protect yourself if anything were to go wrong while using a company’s service or product.
It is still possible after signing a liability waiver to sue a company if you are injured while using their service or product. It can be a hard case, however, there are ways to circumvent the terms in a liability waiver. One of the ways to sue is by making a case of defective products. If your injury was caused by a product being poorly made, you can sue the manufacturer under product liability. A second way to sue a company would be for gross negligence. Even though you sign a liability waiver that protects the company from negligence, a court can hold a company liable if the negligence was extremely hazardous or the company blatantly disregarded safety protocols.