IT’S bad enough that everywhere I go, someone wants me to promise not to sue. I was once asked to sign a release as a houseguest in a private home! And to some extent, I’m sympathetic; it’s stressful and expensive to live in such a litigious society. But it’s ridiculous to demand that every Tom, Dick and Mary assume a liability that can only properly rest with those who bear responsibility. And it’s a perversion of the tort system, which is supposed to put the onus on the parties most able to make sure things are done right. Leaving aside the adequacy of my loss reserves, are these indemnifications legally enforceable? It depends how far they go and which state you’re in.

Margaret Jane Radin, a law professor at the University of Michigan, says they’re intimidating at the least, and overcoming such a provision could itself require litigation. In Indiana, for example, a trial court held that a gas station operator and his helper had to pay to defend an oil company for its own negligence in injuring them with gasoline, a ruling based in part on an indemnification clause. The state Supreme Court found that provision unconscionable, but the plaintiff had to go pretty far just to get his day in court.

At least that was a business agreement; the balance of power is even more asymmetric when consumers are involved. In a new book titled “Boilerplate: The Fine Print, Vanishing Rights, and the Rule of Law,” Ms. Radin argues that an onslaught of one-sided fine print is deleting people’s legal rights and making a mockery of the freedom of contract. In an interview, she observed that some other countries bar such casual rights erasures, and said the Federal Trade Commission could do likewise here.

It should. Meanwhile, people have to start objecting to these unfair agreements, which often relieve businesses and institutions of their most basic responsibilities, pressing individuals to act as their insurers. For years I’ve crossed out indemnity provisions in freelance contracts, and I did likewise for lacrosse. But often that’s not an option, and Ms. Radin warned that while deleting and initialing might help, the other side could contend that it never agreed to the changes. If things came to blows in court, I might still get stuck with the legal bill for both sides.