Are liability waivers in Wisconsin legally binding?

Question

I've always been told that liability waivers aren't worth the paper they are written on, but can't find anything supporting this. I broke my arm in an arm wrestling tournament in which the ref was negligent, and the event hosts didn't carry insurance to cover an incident like this. I signed a waiver saying that I accept responsibility for anything that happened during the tournament (so they say, I believe it was only an entry form, and they haven't shown otherwise). Assuming it was a liability waiver, does anybody know if it holds any legal weight?

Answer 1

A liability waiver generally cannot be used to cover negligent behavior on the part of the officials and organizers of the event, in this case.

If you can sufficiently prove negligence, then the judge will most likely void any waiver.

If there was no negligence and you got hurt doing something that holds a risk for getting hurt (wrestling), then you really don't have a case without overt negligence or criminal behavior on their part.

Answer 2

http://www.wislawjournal.com/archive/200...

The following site, on the WWisconsin Law Journal website, will give you a start.

There was a more recent case, but it did not immeidately pop up.  

The law is, essentially, that the release of liability (also called an exculpatory agreement) must be separately stated, etc.  Read the article (which sites cases, instead of relying on yahoo users).

Before you get all excited, remember that ... if they do not have insurance, collecting money will be rather difficult.

EVEN WITHOUT an exculpatory agreement being enforcible (lets asasume that to be the case), you can expect that the attorney for the group will argue that you "assumed the risk" of a broken arm, and that this sort of injury is common in the sport.  You would have to show that the injury was caused, specifically, by the actions of the defendants (and not due to anything else, like a bad angle).  Also, to the extent that the ref's actions were within the "judgment" of the official, they are not guarantors of your safety, merely arbiters of the rules.

I am saying its a tough case.  NOT that you cannot win.  I think you may do well to read the article, and then negotiate the best deal you can, for a real court would be complicated and require an attorney to draft the appropriate legal briefs.

Good luck

Answer 3

The ref was negligent?  Huh?

Well, I'm not sure how the ref would have caused your broken arm.  But, waiver or not, if you voluntarily participate in an athletic activity, you legally assume the risk of all foreseeable injuries arising from your participation.  So, if you participate in a golf foursome, you assume the risk of being hit by your partner's errant golf balls.  If you participate in a pickup basketball game, you assume the risk of possibly being poked in the eye, or spraining an ankle.  Likewise, if you participate in arm wrestling, I'd imagine that a broken arm is reasonably fooreseeable, and thus you assumed the risk.  

I'm still trying to figure out how the ref caused it.

Answer 4

It may not be binding, or it may not be necessary at all.  

It may not be necessary because you have to prove your case, meaning Duty, Breach, Causation, and Damages.  I see problems with you proving the first three.

First of all, who do you think owed you a Duty, and what was it?  Was the tournament obligated to provide you with a competent referee, and what does "competent" mean?  If the referee has wrestling experience and could call the match more or less accurately, that may be the end of the tournament's duty to you.  Is the referee's Duty to keep you safe?  Are you kidding me? It's a wrestling match, a physical combat event.  People get injured in that kind of thing.  He may have been obligated to stop someone from beating you with a chair, or end a match when you're unconscious, and maybe some holds aren't allowed, but even with his doing all that, bones can get broken.  

I've never been a wrestler, but I find it hard to believe that the referee is responsible to prevent all injuries.

Where do you think the Breach was?  Did your opponent shout "watch this! I'm gonna break his arm!"?  Did you signal surrender, and the ref was looking at something else, and then your opponent broke your arm? Look, the referee can't be held responsible for injuries in a fight between two people who agree to fight each other, there has to be more.

I'm sorry, I think that this is a foreseeable (if uncommon) result of engaging in the sport.