Liability Waivers protect Companies from being sued in Trenton, Princeton, Hamilton, Mercer County and across Central NJ
Normally, if you are injured due to the reckless or negligent actions of another party in incidents such as auto accidents, trucks accidents, motorcycle accidents, slip and falls, ladder or scaffolding accidents, or any other kind of accident, you are entitled to seek compensation through a personal injury claim.
However, many companies and services are now requiring customers to sign “liability waivers”. Liability waivers protect these companies from many incidents of negligence, and can prevent parties injured while partaking in their services from pursuing injury claims. Furthermore, those same businesses can legally deny their services to anyone who does not sign their liability waiver.
Liability waivers are especially common in places like gyms, fitness centers, adventure tours, and other recreational events, and these places all have the potential to cause serious injury. So, can you still seek compensation for your injuries in Mercer County even though you have signed a liability waiver? There are two specific scenarios when this may still be possible, let’s take a look.
Unreasonable Liability Waivers and Mercer County Injury Claims
The first situation in which it may still be possible to recover compensation for your injuries even though you have signed a liability waiver is when the liability waiver you signed is considered by a judge to be “ambiguous” or “unreasonable”. This means that most people who actually read the liability waiver would not reasonably be able to understand its terms, or its legal implications, due to its extremely unclear writing.
Unfortunately, as more case law develops regarding liability waivers and their legibility and validity, most businesses are borrowing legal language from other liability waivers which have stood up to this exact legal scrutiny in past cases. As most liability waivers tend to be fairly similar in the terms that they outline, it is easy for places like gyms and fitness centers to borrow legally sound language from other liability waivers, and stay protected from liability in this manner.
If you have been injured on a premises or partaking in a service for which you have signed a liability waiver, contact our Mercer County injury firm to discuss whether or not the liability waiver you have signed may be considered unreasonable or ambiguous.
Gross Negligence, Mercer County Accident and Injury Lawyers
The second scenario in which it may still be possible to recover compensation for your injuries even though you have signed a liability waiver is in the case that the negligence which caused your injuries is considered “gross negligence”.
In legal terms, there are two specific types of negligence possible in a personal injury case, “ordinary negligence” and “gross negligence”. Ordinary negligence refers to accidents or incidents or injury wherein the liable party “forgot”, “overlooked”, or “failed to notice”. Liability waivers protect businesses and services from all incidents of ordinary negligence, so if your injuries were due to ordinary negligence, your case will most likely be summarily dismissed by the judge.
However, liability waivers cannot legally protect those same businesses and services from incidents of gross negligence. Gross negligence refers to when those services or their employees made conscious decisions to ignore their legal responsibilities to ensure the safety of their customers, all the while knowing that doing so would most likely lead to injury. A perfect example of gross negligence would be when a gym and its employees are repeatedly notified about a safety hazard such as a malfunctioning workout machine, but take no steps to correct the hazard, or restrict access to it. In this example, those actions could be considered gross negligence, and still allow for the injured party to seek compensation through a Mercer County personal injury claim.
Contact Our Injury and Liability Waiver Attorneys in Mercer County Today
At The Law Office of Cohen & Riechelson, our attorneys have been helping clients across Trenton, Princeton, Hamilton, Mercer County, and throughout New Jersey to recover compensation in personal injury lawsuits of all kinds since 1972.
Insurance companies across the state respect the legal service we are capable of providing to each of our clients, and, as such, tend to deal much more fairly with us than they would otherwise. By focusing primarily on personal injury and workers’ compensation law, our firm is capable of providing the knowledgeable, effective, and tenacious representation that you need and deserve in any situation involving an accident and injury.
To speak with our firm today in a free and confidential consultation regarding your accident, your injuries, and your options for recovering compensation even though you may have signed a liability waiver, please contact us online, or through our Hamilton, NJ office at (609) 528-2596.
