Florida Ruling States Parents Cannot Sign Waivers For Children

A decision this week by the Florida Supreme Court could pose trouble for programs that introduce young people to their first airplane flight. The Associated Press reports the state court ruled 4-1 that parents cannot waive liability for their children who participate in motor sports or other activities that carry a higher degree of risk.

The ruling came as a result of the death of a 14-year-old boy at an Okeechobee County motor sports park in 2003. A lower court ruled the facility was not liable for the boy's death, since his father had signed a liability waiver. That decision was later overturned on appeal, and that appeal was upheld Thursday by the state supreme court.

The AP notes the ruling could pose difficulties for businesses including go-kart tracks, bungee jumping, parasailing and horseback riding.

"Florida's children and parents need not worry, after today's decision, that careless commercial operators may be immunized from their carelessness by the presence of an exculpatory clause in a ticket for admission," Justice Harry Lee Anstead wrote in his opinion on the decision.

Anstead took pains to note the court's decision specifically targets enterprises that make money from offering such services. "...[O]ur holding is narrowly directed at those commercial operators who wrongfully and negligently cause injury," he wrote.

However, a single line from Chief Justice Peggy Quince has potential implications for such not-for-profit efforts as the EAA's Young Eagles program, in which pilots donate their time, money and aircraft to give children their first trip around the pattern. In a footnote to the main ruling, Quince wrote the decision "should not be read as limiting our reasoning only to ... commercial activity."

The lone dissenting opinion was provided by Justice Charles Wells, who wrote the matter should be decided by legislative action and regulation, not by judicial decree. It's "fundamentally unfair now to declare a new public policy and then apply it to the defendants in this case," Wells wrote.

In addition to impacting free airplane rides, the ruling could also put a halt to school-sponsored and charitable activities, and Boys and Girls Scouts of America campouts. Those organizations are not likely to be able to afford the potential liability from the risk of injury or death -- however small -- of the participants.

Stay tuned.

FMI: www.floridasupremecourt.org, www.eaa.org