Recreational Release Forms: Just What are you Signing Away?

Anyone with children has signed dozens of them - release forms that allow your child to participate in a recreational activity. Whether we’re talking about a laser-tag or paint-ball birthday party, a gymnastics class or summer camp, parents are presented with these forms to sign as a requirement of their child’s participation.   While each may be worded differently, the intent is the same: to render a business immune from liability for negligently injuring your child.

Before you sign the next release that comes home in your child’s backpack, here are three things you need to know:

1) Releases insulate a business and its employees from nearly anything that happens as a result of an employee’s careless act or negligence. Suppose an employee shows up to work hungover and is responsible for strapping your child into a harness for a climbing wall. Should your child fall and become catastrophically injured because he was not harnessed properly and you signed a broadly worded release form, you would have no legal right to pursue a claim against that business or its employee regardless of your child’s injuries.

2) Releases are never for the consumer’s benefit – they are created by insurance companies to protect the business, not you. What they are telling you in that release is: “Before you send your child here, you must agree that we cannot be held accountable for what happens to your child, whether it’s our fault or not.” 

3) The law says that by signing the form, you have read the release, understood it, and agreed to its conditions.  We know that in reality very few people read or fully understand the rights they are giving up in a release, but under Massachusetts law we are bound by the terms of the release should the unthinkable happen.

So, what can you do to protect your child’s rights? First, read the release in its entirety and understand what you are signing away. If the language is broad, as it almost always is, you may try to alter a release by hand--adding an arrow and the sentence “This release does not apply to claims for negligence”; or sign the release “John Doe, who agrees to the above except for claims for negligence.”  Once you’ve signed it and the business has accepted it, it would be difficult for a business or insurance company to argue that you had waived claims for negligence.

Should they give you a hard time or demand you sign a new form, it might be worth asking the owner “Why would you want to insulate yourself from your own negligence?”  What should we think of a business that will not do business with us unless we give them a license to be careless with our child? As a lawyer, it would be unethical for me to ask my clients to agree that I could not be held responsible for negligently representing them. Why should a business taking care of my child be able to do this?

Every time I am presented with one of these releases, I honestly think about whether to sign it or not. When you do, you are not just giving up your rights, you are giving up the rights of your child. That’s a pretty big deal. While one could dismiss this as the musings of a paranoid lawyer, the fact is that until the law changes, once a release is signed you and your child may well be without recourse should someone carelessly harm your child. I have, in fact, seen this happen. 

For the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling upholding releases in Sharon v. City of Newton, see http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ma-supreme-judicial-court/1108536.html