Mar 2019 Charity & NFP Law Update
On February 19, 2019, the Supreme Court of British Columbia released its decision in Peters v Soares, in which the court refused to enforce two liability waivers with respect to an individual who had been injured in a competition as a jiu-jitsu student of a martial arts academy. In holding both waivers unenforceable, the court affirmed the importance of using language that can demonstrate what each party was contemplating at the time of signing, and the need for organizations to keep proper records of such waiver agreements in order to be able to identify the exact terms to which a participant had agreed. This decision is important for charities and not-for-profits which utilize liability waivers, in that it demonstrates that courts will closely scrutinize the language of liability waivers to determine if they are to be enforced.
For the balance of this Bulletin, please see Charity & NFP Law Bulletin No. 444.