Site Banned all C02

[Rogerborg]

Is this the same for all airsoft sites that make you sign a waiver before a game? It doesn't actually do anything?

To expand on what @Tommikkasaid, what I think[*]sites should be doing is explaining:

1) What to expect. We often see this in the form of "physical exertion" or similar.

2) What duties of care they think the players owe to ourselves and to each other, like wearing eye protection, calling hits and raising a hand, removing mags/clearing guns, and responding to "Man down / cease fire" calls.

3) Setting out the duties of care they think that the site owes to the player.

I've yet to see a site really do the 3rd one, and far too many sites seem to think that they can use a waiver to avoid any responsibility with a clause about agreeing not to sue them, for anything, under any circumstances, even when they are negligent with respect to a duty of care.

That's specifically prohibited in law, as referenced above and quoted below.  Absolutely in the case of death or personal injury, and with a reasonableness test for loss or damage - for example, if a marshal rageflips and smashes your gun against a tree, they can't then say "Cry harder, you agreed you can't sue us for anything."  We explicitly cannot waive those rights.

2 Negligence liability.

(1) A person cannot by reference to any contract term or to a notice given to persons generally or to particular persons exclude or restrict his liability for death or personal injury resulting from negligence.

(2) In the case of other loss or damage, a person cannot so exclude or restrict his liability for negligence except in so far as the term or notice satisfies the requirement of reasonableness.

[*]Disclaimer/waiver!  This is based on a couple of days of H&S liability avoidance training several decades ago, this advice comes without warranty, including fitness for any purpose.  

 

[Tommikka]

I did mean to put up a link as well, but neglected that

https://www.lawdepot.co.uk/law-library/faq/release-or-waiver-agreement-faq-united-kingdom/#.YicXyWSnwWO

A ‘waiver’ is legally enforceable - as long as it’s found to be valid in court.  e.g. a well written waiver protects both the site & players, and will stand appropriately in court to prevent or support a case

A less well written ‘waiver’ can be found to be enforceable but parts of it might turn out to not mean what the author thought or certain elements are disregarded 

A badly written ‘waiver’ is just ripped apart in court and has no value at all - the site could end up liable for anything that a player chooses to sue for 

Note that ‘waivers’ can work in many directions - player A could sue player B, however it may also be that player A sues the site for the consequences of player B and the site has to go after player B afterwards *
 

Will courts always enforce an activity waiver and release?

Generally courts will respect the waiver agreement reached between the parties however in some circumstances a court may be unwilling to enforce a waiver agreement. This is especially the case in situations where they find:

the agreement conflicts with public policy (i.e. parties performing essential services to the public are expected to fulfill their obligations to the public and cannot waive liability by using a release)

the releasee's conduct amounts to gross negligence (i.e. the releasee cannot waive liability for conduct that rises to the level of gross negligence)

the release contains ambiguous language (i.e. the document does not clearly and explicitly communicate the intention of terminating the releasee’s liability)

the releasor is not aware of the release and cannot reasonably be expected to be aware of it (i.e. the waiver clause in the document appears in such a way that it is unlikely to be read by the releasor)

the releasor lacks the capacity to contract away his or her--or another person's-claims (i.e. if the releasor is a minor or the releasor is lacking the mental capacity needed to sign the document)

* after a motorcycle accident many years ago my solicitor turned to my passenger and told her that he is listing her damages to the van driver, but unless their insurance just pays out then she would have get another solicitor to sue me for me to sue the van driver

After continually ignoring my solicitor they pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and then the insurance paid out fully —- and it was a much higher bill due to all the repeated solicitor letters - happily I wasn’t paying along the way, and he just kept telling me to not worry about the bill rocking up as the case was solid

 

[Rogerborg]

the releasee's conduct amounts to gross negligence (i.e. the releasee cannot waive liability for conduct that rises to the level of gross negligence)

I'd stress that as being the significant part, and I'd question where "gross" is coming from, since it doesn't appear in the statute and a brief (tee hee) search of https://www.bailii.org/ didn't turn up anything relevant for UTCA 1977 S2 and "gross negligence".

The way I view it is that if there's blame there's always a claim.  If there isn't blame (negligence), then it's a moot issue as there's nothing to waive.  Rather a reductive issue.