What Rights Are You Signing Away with an Arizona Skydiving Liability Waiver?

So you finally got up the nerve to try skydiving. You and your best friends have decided to just do it already, and now you’re experiencing feelings of excitement mixed with abject terror. Being the practical kind of person that you are (as opposed to the thrill-seeking, adventure loving type that your friends are), you want to find out all the details about skydiving, and what the waiver that you are required to sign contains.

You feel relieved to discover that statistically, skydiving is not as dangerous as you thought it was. Your odds of getting injured in a car crash are much greater than your odds of being injured in a skydiving accident. However, no matter how you compare the risk, skydiving is still a dangerous sport. If you jump out of an airplane and the silk parachute fails to open or gets tangled up, or if there is a problem with the airplane before the jump, you can suffer devastating injuries. Or you could fall to your death.

The skydiving company knows this, and they also know that millions of people want to jump out of airplanes anyway. If every person who suffered an injury while skydiving sued the company, they would not be able to afford to operate, so they require potential skydiving participants to sign a waiver before they will be permitted to jump.

(It might be surprising to know that it is not usually the skydiving students who get into accidents. In a story on ABCnews.com, Nancy Koreen of the U.S. Parachute Association said that it is most often the more experienced skydivers who end up in accidents because they make deadly mistakes when they are pushed beyond their limits.)

Do I really sign away all my rights when I sign a liability waiver for skydiving?

Not necessarily. Businesses rely on waivers of liability to stay in business when the activity in question is dangerous and participants could potentially incur injuries. If a skydiving student signs the waiver, and then suffers an injury or fatality, there are still circumstances within which the injured person or the family of the deceased person can challenge the liability waiver, such as gross negligence or defects in the airplane or parachute equipment.

This is why you want to seek the advice of an experienced Phoenix injury lawyer if you are hurt during a skydiving trip, even if you signed a waiver. Our team knows how to read a contract, and we know that not all waivers will stand up in a court of law.

If you love indulging in dangerous, adrenaline-pumping sports, does that mean that you must give up your right to file a lawsuit if a vendor’s negligence has caused a catastrophic injury or the death of a loved one? We invite you to contact the professional Phoenix catastrophic injury attorneys of Plattner Verderame, P.C. by calling 602-266-2002 or filling out our contact form today.