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Subject:RE: Disclaimer or urban legend? From:KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 10 Feb 2003 13:57:46 -0500
Back in the day... when my wife and I were instructors
at a couple of skydiving centers, they had disclaimers,
with one place having a more "legalese" document, and
the other having a more plain-language version, but
both were quite blunt.
Then, I would get up in front of a class, waive a
sample copy of the waiver at 'em and say:
"Sign yourcopy , get it witnessed by your neighbor,
and hand it in. Without those signatures, we don't
let you go up. In a nutshell, this is what
you are acknowledging:
Skydiving is not 'perfectly safe'. We can't make it so,
and we probably wouldn't want to. You can die.
Especially you young folks, you could die today. Really.
We provide you with excellent modern equipment, well
maintained and properly installed. We provide you with
excellent modern instruction on what to do with all
that excellent equipment. We tell you how to deal with
usual and less-usual situations, so that a normal, healthy
person who pays attention and practices what we tell you,
can have a safe and happy experience and maybe come back
to give us even more of your money.
Nevertheless, we could do everything correctly and
you could do everything correctly, and you could
STILL get hurt or die. Who thinks I'm exaggerating?
If you don't care to take that responsiblity, or if
you really think that I must be exaggerating, please
leave now. You can still get a refund. I'm not kidding."
Later, in the class (this was mostly static-line/IAD
first-jump) I would explain that when they left the
plane, they should make a nice arch with their bodies
and look up at me. I would be in the plane, watching/
evaluating them (their alertness and focus) and would
make a signal at them -- such as "thumbs-up" or "OK"
(circle of forefinger and thumb) or a wave. They were
to tell me later what they had seen. But, if the
student were to really F#$ -at- -up the exit, then in the
midst of their tumbling they might catch a glimpse of
me holding out three spread fingers.
"This represents the letter 'W'. If I show you that
signal, it means I've given up on you and I'm reminding
you that 'you signed the Waiver, buddy'."
And, STILL they'd go jump out of airplanes. :-)
At irregular intervals, we would record a class, from
start to finish, both to have a sample of the warnings
and instruction that students were receiving, and to
get new instructors up-to-speed.
We had almost no lawsuits, and none of them stuck.
When the dropzones later switched to tandem freefall
instruction, exclusively, they would play a tape
by the inventor of the tandem equipment, Bill Booth
of "The Uninsured Relative Workshop, Inc.". Bill looked
exactly like a member of ZZ-Top, and he used blunt
language to make his point, as well. Essentially,
that was a video disclaimer. Then the students would
sign a waiver indicating (among other things) that they'd
viewed the tape.
> Sure enough, it's a
> real message,
> and that pretty much answers my second question about whether such
> disclaimers really exist "in the wild". Best of all, I bet
> that kind of
> disclaimer would stand up better in a court of law than the
> more standard
> legalese, since it's much harder to claim the language is
> incomprehensible.
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