What makes a waiver legal?

How important is a waiver in a business? Can it save you your hard earned money? To answer these questions, this article has explained in details how to effectively evaluate your waiver legal standpoint to ensure that it will be honored in the court of law, just in case. But first…

What is a Liability Waiver?

Also known as a release, a liability waiver is simply an agreement between a service host and a participant. These types of waivers are usually presented to participants just before they take part in activities.   Unfortunately, studies show that most participants are always in a hurry to sign the legal document without reading and understanding it. This forces them to take responsibility for their own safety.

A liability waiver acts as proof that the event host or organizer warned their participants of associated dangers before taking part. It excuses an organizer for injuries as a result of ordinary negligence.

Who should use a waiver?

Here are some instances where a waiver is needed:

• Any business that provides physical activities must have its participants’ sign waivers before they take part in such activities.
• Any event organizer needs a liability form signed by volunteers before they participate.
• A travel company  should have its customers sign a waiver form before the beginning of each journey
• Any sports organization should have a liability form for the team members

What makes a waiver legal?

A waiver must contain certain features to be considered legal in the court of law:

• A waiver must bear the signature of the person it will be used against.
• All the injuries that might occur should be listed in the risk section
• All waivers must not conflict with public policy.
• Any waiver should be clear for the purpose of avoiding misunderstandings in the near future.
• A waiver should contain wording as required by state laws.
• Within the waiver, it should acknowledge that injuries are as a result of host negligence.

Can a waiver be invalid?

Courts respect waivers to the letter. However, there are instances in which the court is forced to dishonor the particular agreement:

• A waivers language has to contain clear wording that is also straight to the point. Poorly written waiver content will definitely get rejected in the court of law. A waiver that is too short may not include the factors essential to provide legal protection to a business. Again, your waiver may not be easily understood by the person needed to sign it if it happens to be too long. The two instances may automatically render it invalid in the court
• The most critical language must be typed or placed on a location on the page that is easily visible. The fonts must also be large enough for easy reading. All these must be adhered to when drafting a waiver; otherwise, the waiver will not be honored.
• Waivers must not use false statements to lure participants. In most cases, a waiver will be considered illegal when the participants are not aware of what they are getting into. An organization will be held responsible for committing fraud if participants think that the activities they are getting themselves into are something else that they are not!
• Waivers must mention all the full names of the parties it intends to protect. Even though, a lawsuit against any party that is a contributor to damage may be able to be sued even if their names are not listed in the waiver.
• The waiver is intended to protect a business or a party from negligence. However, there is always a thin line between gross negligence and ordinary negligence. In most cases, the final verdict on the case depends on several factors such as the state laws and the court.
• For a waiver to be termed legal, it must be able to allow participants to seek justice in an event that they were injured by malfunctioning equipment.

Best waiver App

OnSpot Social is one of the best waiver apps in the market today. The app makes it so easy for you to have your participants sign the waiver effortlessly. It simply converts your existing waiver into a digital form that can be signed from any location on your iPad.

The app also lets you add a link or a widget on your website so that your customers are able to sign immediately as they arrive at your events. As if not enough, you can turn your iPad into a kiosk so that you have a waiver signing station at each of your events

OnSpot works without Wi-Fi meaning that it can work in areas where you do not have access to the internet. Within the app stores the participants’ information in a security locked database so that you are able to locate them when the need arises. Therefore, the app allows you to send any waiver data into a CRM of your choice. The app can be integrated with several reservations software in the market today.

Conclusion

As you can already see, waivers, when not drafted well, can turn out to be a little messy in the court of law. To prevent such instances, organizations are advised to administer liability waivers in a manner that is in accordance with the law.  The waiver agreements should be explained thoroughly before participants are allowed to sign. This will get rid of any misunderstanding thereafter.

When it comes to collecting waivers from participants, hands down for OnSpot Social. We vouch for the app because we would love you to have an exciting, tireless experience at your events. Plus we have received so many positive comments and reviews from individuals who have been pleasantly surprised when they have used the OnSpot Social App. Not only have they found it easy to use but it did the job admirably.

We hope that this article shed light on what makes a waiver legal and how to come up with one that won’t land your business in trouble!