Make sure you READ the waiver!

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I jump anyways but choose who I jump with more carefully. Deland serves beer all day to as does almost every DZ with a full service bar on it.

What do you do about the rest of load?

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The bar wasn't open all day when I was there last. Course, that was nearly a year ago.

I've only been there once, but I could get beer all day long, just had to know where to look.

-
Jim

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I look to make sure there are no open containers while jump operations are in progress. I

What do you do at Zhills? IIRC, the bar is open all day long. How about WFFC?

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Jim

I've never seen the bar at ZHills open until the last load has taken off.

I'm not a lawyer, but this cries out for me to invent a highly contrived hypothetical situation. I am against lawsuits within Skydiving, but suppose I am a skydiver, who happens to be drinking a home-brew
in his own family room, 45 miles from the nearest known drop zone, at midnight during a new moon, with zero visibility due to heavy clouds and thunderstorms, with winds gusting up to 75 mph, when my good rec.skydiving buddy ??, after imbibing a few too many cheap clear-bottled lite macro beers, decides to pay me a friendly call.

Suppose he hires ?? to fly him over my house, which is near Corona airport, in a beat-up old rattletrap C-152 leaking oil, in exchange for a jug of moonshine and half a key of primo flake. As he leans out the door to drop his wind drift indicator--a watermelon tied to an auto safety flare--his FXC Astra malfunctions, firing his Raven reserve.

Much to his chagrin, ?? discovers that a C-152 doing 90mph with a 75mph tailwind, overloaded at 1.75 lbs/sqft, and ejected over the right rudder fin, exceeds the rated capacity of his reserve. The whole mess spirals down in a fiery bloody shrieking clarion of Armageddon, ruining my petunias and waking my dog, which in distress eats my daughter's homework and causes a blemish on her academic record, preventing her from winning a scholarship to the Citadel, defending this great country, and caring for
me in my old age.

Luckily, both ?? and ?? survive, but both complain loudly about the noise the ambulance siren makes on its way to take them to the hospital. As I said, I am against lawsuits within Skydiving, but in this case, I would make an exception.

Blues skies and home brews,

Dan'l

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ON the philosophical note "survival of the fittest" is a state of nature that has no real application to the human race now.

So what you're saying is that choice has nothing to do with nature???

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If I have been given intentionally false information from people I trust (rigger pilot DZO) then I havn't been given a fair shot at deciding what risk I'm actually running.

life is not fair, and you are just as big of an idealist as me if you think that it's possible to have everything together or for someone else to know exactly what information you need to draw conclusions... but good point!

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Again, to everyone who says its my call and my fault.. your full of it no one, not one of us actually checks EVERYTHING some where in there you are trusting at least one (more likely MANY) people to be doing their best, not intentionally trying to screw you, not cutting corners and lieing, or your running on the assumption that anything you dont check IS being Intentionally negelcted/screwed with and you make you measure of risk based on that ..(which if it were true gives you about a 1:10000 chance of living) if thats the case you nuts but I bet you get a bigger rush from the sport then I do, and I hope your wrong on your assumptions.

Actually, this is interesting. But I do trust. Maybe I am nuts. But I bet I don't get a bigger rush. I tell people I skydive because it's the only time in my life when I'm 100% in the moment. Different strokes for different folks maybe, but I think that fear that something could be out of my control is what keeps me alert and alive, and maybe some of the people on my DZ alive too. If someone came at me with a chainsaw mid-air, as previously noted, I would probably charge them with some form of assault, but I wouldn't sue the dz for letting them on the plane.

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If someone came at me with a chainsaw mid-air, as previously noted, I would probably charge them with some form of assault, but I wouldn't sue the dz for letting them on the plane.

OK, but if they were a dzo, or a JM, or other "dz representative" listed in the waiver, would you sue them anyway? [medical bills, lost work wages, etc]

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The question was, why would you give your word not to sue under any circumstance, but really mean that under certain circumstances you will sue?

I know you can, but why say that you won't if you already know that you would?

But I didn't agree to not sue under any circumstaces. I agreed not to sue for reasons of negligence. Gross negligence is not and cannot be covered under a release of liablility therefore it is implied that it is not covered by the agreement.

Every waiver I've signed, that I've actually read, specifically states gross negligence too.

Dave

Its all been said:
Points not worth discussing

Can or can't you sue (covered)

Is it a violation of your word regardless of if its legal to sue (covered, agreed to disagree)

Is the contract valid for Gross negligence (it says it is but you can't waive your right to sue for gross neg so again its legal to sue but is it a violation of your word? see above)

Is the diver responsible ultimately for his/her choice to jump YES (regardless of the information he has been given by people he trusts)

Is it wrong to intentionally violate someone's trust (including violation of the spirit of the wavier) basically we agree to disagree with some seeing gray and others seeing black and white


Is it wrong and stupid to sue for honest mistakes/random failures innate to the sport or your own stupidity i.e. poor piloting etc (most of us agree, yes)

Trying to come up with crazy situations to get the people who see in black and white to see gray .. waste of time

Is the wording of the waiver extreme YUP

Trying to convince people who see in grey they are wrong and violating the contract and their word regardless of how crazy the situation given (covered in the wording of the waiver or not) again a waste of time

I really enjoyed the mental exercise of this post, in the long run I doubt anyone changed the opinion they came in with or their personal view of the world
but even for those who I disagree with thanks, and to anyone with more original argument (even to the topics I in my "wisdom" have claimed to be covered) please continue maybe the exercise isn't quite as dead as I seem to think :)

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>When I sign a LEGAL DOCUMENT I believe it means what the law
>says it means, no more, and no less.

OK. An example:

I go to sell you a rig. It's a Talon with a Stiletto 120, PD126, and a Cypres. It's in decent shape but I'm desperate to get rid of it; I offer you the complete system for $1500. You write me a check and put "complete talon system" in the comment field.


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A comment field on a check does not constitute a contract.

But it could constitute a conditional endorsement to the verbal sale contract. Which would amend the original verbal contract, or in this case strengthen Bill's hypothetical case.

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>When I sign a LEGAL DOCUMENT I believe it means what the law
>says it means, no more, and no less.

OK. An example:

I go to sell you a rig. It's a Talon with a Stiletto 120, PD126, and a Cypres. It's in decent shape but I'm desperate to get rid of it; I offer you the complete system for $1500. You write me a check and put "complete talon system" in the comment field.


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A comment field on a check does not constitute a contract.

But it could constitute a conditional endorsement to the verbal sale contract. Which would amend the original verbal contract, or in this case strengthen Bill's hypothetical case.

Pigs could fly, if they had wings. A comment on a check does not constitute a contract. A waiver is explicitly a legal contract. Hence it only means what the law says it means. If you wish to interpret it to mean something other than that, it's your privilege, but it doesn't obligate me to agree to do the same.

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Pigs could fly, if they had wings. A comment on a check does not constitute a contract. A waiver is explicitly a legal contract. Hence it only means what the law says it means. If you wish to interpret it to mean something other than that, it's your privilege, but it doesn't obligate me to agree to do the same.

Fine then if DZ stop calling it a waiver and call it an understanding between two parties. Would that change things for you?

if they stopped calling it a "legal document" and started calling it a "word of honor" that would make a difference.

A legal document means what the law says it means, and when you sign it, you are agreeing to what the law says you agree to.

You can give your WORD to anything you choose, and hopefully, choose to keep it.

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Pigs could fly, if they had wings. A comment on a check does not constitute a contract. A waiver is explicitly a legal contract. Hence it only means what the law says it means. If you wish to interpret it to mean something other than that, it's your privilege, but it doesn't obligate me to agree to do the same.

Fine then if DZ stop calling it a waiver and call it an understanding between two parties. Would that change things for you?

Well, they could do that, but then it wouldn't be legally enforceable, which is the entire point of the waiver.

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Pigs could fly, if they had wings. A comment on a check does not constitute a contract. A waiver is explicitly a legal contract. Hence it only means what the law says it means. If you wish to interpret it to mean something other than that, it's your privilege, but it doesn't obligate me to agree to do the same.

Fine then if DZ stop calling it a waiver and call it an understanding between two parties. Would that change things for you?

They could call it "Sweet Fanny Adams" as far as I'm concerned. It's what it IS, not what it's CALLED, that matters.

As long as it's presented as being a legal document, it only means what the law in that jurisdiction says it means.

Anyways, for what it is worth, which in all likelihood isn't much

That's the kewlest thing I think I've read so far.