Hi All,
Just a couple of ideas for topics of discussion for the next members meeting
For the first thing, I was wondering if we should be implementing a release of liability form (perhaps by clicking a button online when they login) in so far as using some of the more larger tools. Since even with an induction there may be liability issues. https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/Release_of_Liability
Next currently our rule set is defined by
I couldn’t find a direct link on the main site to it when I looked for it, but I think connor is in the middle of redesigning the site anyway
I noticed a lot of similarity with the Nottingham one https://readthedocs.org/projects/nottingham-hackspace-ruless/downloads/pdf/latest/
admittedly they’re rules and process’s will be different
although they seem to list things like which particular legal acts in the documentation such as the “Health Act 2006 - Smoking ban” so I was wondering if it would be worth investigating if there was anything that could be copied / pasted over in so far as more polished legalese / language etc.
I did a bit more googling and from what I can gather it’s fairly common for places where people go to clubs or places where there are risky endeavours
(such as trampolining, or rock climbing) for a person to sign a document
Typically these are called a “Personal Injury Release” or a “Activity Risk Waiver”
In our case the insurance may cover some of this, but given the use of power tools this is worth investigating further.
Looking at the wording it suggests that it wouldn’t be much use if it’s due to someone else’s negligence.
But if it’s due to a persons own negligence (such as using a tool incorrectly) then this may be different.
As an example if someone is trampolining and the trampoline is defective then it’s on the person that owns the trampoline, but if someone is trampolining and decide to do something they know they shouldn’t (such as jumping up and down using they’re head) then it’s on the individual instead.
It makes me wonder that if other people are doing this for trampolining, then should we be doing something similar for a tool that has a large spiny blade of death
that waiver won’t work, in fact if something really bad happened and it came up in evidence it may harm your case i.e. you were passing off your duties.
The example with the trampoline is not effected by the waiver. If someone does something irregular and they have told not to do it or its blindly obvious negligence wont’ attach. There is lots of scaremongering around ‘health and safety’ such as where there is ‘blame there is a claim’ but this is not in fact the case.
