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When you sign your kid up for sports, you’re probably

expecting to see that little piece of paper that says you

agree not to sue if your child is accidentally

hurt. It turns out those pieces of paper are pretty much

worthless.

Tom Rayfield and his wife found out first hand after their

teenage son and a group of his friends decided they wanted

to go to Sky High Sports in Bellevue.

“When you’re a busy working mom and your teenage son puts

a piece of paper in front of you and says ‘Sign this so I

can go to the trampoline park’ […] She just signed the

paper thinking in essence, that it was a permission slip,”

says Rayfield.

What started as a pretty routine outing turned into a trip

to the emergency room. Rayfield’s son had a very hard

landing on

his left foot. He says the 16-year-old had to

undergo a couple of surgeries to deal with fractures and a

dislocation in his ankle.

At first, Rayfield says, he wasn’t looking to sue, but he

happened to have a friend who was an attorney. When

Rayfield mentioned the accident to his friend, attorney

Sim Osborne informed him that parents cannot sign away the

rights of minors.

“And that’s a smart guy, that’s a guy that graduated from

Whitman College, and he had no idea,” says Osborne.

The waiver they had signed falls under a 1992 decision by

the Washington State Supreme Court that rejected a release

signed by the mother of a 12-year-old boy who was hurt

during a skiing accident.

“You cannot waive a minor’s rights before something

happens to them because only a court can do that,”

Osborne says.

Rayfield is not the first client to come in thinking they

had signed away the right to sue. Osborne says he has

seen a lot of clients who initially come in asking for

referral to a bankruptcy attorney to deal with the medical

bills after their child is hurt. In several of those

cases he has been able to sue successfully, despite the

existence of a liability waiver.

Even though the precedent invalidating waivers dates back

at least 20 years, they’re still required at schools,

city sports teams, and recreation areas. Osborne says

they

do it because they can.

“They don’t let your children play unless you sign the

waiver, usually, but that doesn’t mean that it’s

enforceable,” says Osborne.

There is no law prohibiting them from asking you to sign a

waiver. So, the next time you are asked to release

someone from liability, Osborn says, go ahead. Just

remember if your child does wind up getting hurt, you

still have a right to sue on their behalf.