Posts Tagged ‘recreation’

“Liability Concerns Prompt Some Cities to Limit Sledding”

Sad on multiple levels [AP]:

[Omaha assistant city attorney Tom] Mumgaard said courts in Nebraska have decided cities must protect people, even if they make poor choices.

Most people realize that cities must restrict potentially dangerous activities to protect people and guard against costly lawsuits, said Kenneth Bond, a New York lawyer who represents local governments. In the past, people might have embraced a Wild West philosophy of individuals being solely responsible for their actions, but now they expect government to prevent dangers whenever possible.

I’d say there’s more than one kind of downhill toboggan momentum we might want to worry about. Commentary: Lenore Skenazy (“If we believe that ‘whenever possible’ = ‘imagining all possible dangers, no matter how remote, and actively preventing them all, all the time, even by drastic decrees,’ then we get a society that puts 100% safety above any other cause, including fairness, convenience, exercise, rationality — and delight”); Ira Stoll (“This is the sort of story that you’d think might build some political support for tort reform.”).

Delaware: “Punkin Chunkin canceled for this year”

The ballistic pumpkin-launching event, featured on the Discovery Channel, and “held for years on a succession of rural Sussex County farm fields, was to have moved to the same grounds that host Firefly this year. After a volunteer filed a personal injury lawsuit in 2013 over an ATV accident at the 2011 Chunk, the farmer hosting it in Sussex County said he wouldn’t let it return to his property.” Organizers have now resigned themselves to skipping 2014, and hope to hold the event in Dover next year. [Wilmington News-Journal]

July 15 roundup

  • “Cato Went 10-1 at Supreme Court This Term” [Ilya Shapiro; on merits cases] Yesterday I spoke to a private policy gathering in Annapolis, Md. with a retrospective on the Supreme Court term, especially its lessons for state government. If you’re looking for a speaker on Court issues, I or one of my colleagues at Cato’s Center for Constitutional Studies may fit the bill;
  • “CrossFit Sues ‘Competitor’ For Revealing Its Injury Rates” [DeadSpin]
  • New Jersey court rules for casino in unshuffled baccarat deck case [Elie Mystal/Above the Law, earlier]
  • Family rescued from 1000 miles offshore plans to sue over nonworking satellite cell phone [ABC 10 News]
  • Tartly worded response to third-party-subpoena demand in Sherrod/Breitbart case [attorney Robert Driscoll]
  • Legal academia: Prof. Bainbridge takes on law-and, empirical legal studies crowds [Bainbridge, TaxProf and reactions] George Leef on reforming law schools [Pope Center]
  • “Uber Agrees to End Surge Pricing During NY Emergencies, And Why That Means You’ll Never Find a Ride” [Gary Leff; Peter Van Doren, Cato]

“Insurance troubles for high school bass tournament”

“Concerns about insurance requirements will keep a southwest Missouri high school team from participating in the first high school bass pro fishing tournament in June.” The insurer for the Nixa High School angling team said it had only suggested, not required, “such things as having the volunteer boaters take a Coast Guard certification course at a cost of about $400 each, and to be CPR- and first-aid trained and requiring students and boat captains to wear specific safety glasses.” [AP/Houston Chronicle; Springfield News-Leader]

May Day special: morris dance liability

So far as I can tell, this insurance page from Great Britain is entirely in earnest:

Public Liability Insurance for Morris Dance Troupes

We provide instant, on-line morris dance troupe public liability insurance quotes and cover from our panel of specialist liability insurers and our own unique underwriting facilities in the United Kingdom….

Why does a morris dance troupe need public liability insurance?

Every day morris dance troupes face the risk of legal action being taken against them in respect of their liability for personal injury or property damage arising in the course of their business activities. The awards that may be made as a result of a successful claim can be catastrophic but even the legal costs of defending the most spurious claim can cause severe financial hardship.

On the other hand, this page from the plaintiff’s side appears to have been written at least with a bit of tongue-in-cheek:

The no win no fee Elstow Morris dancing accident injury claim specialist

A little bit of Morris-dancing never hurt anybody; or did it? You might need the services of a specialist no win no fee Elstow Morris dancing accident injury claim solicitor, if, whilst strutting your stuff, you’re struck in the face by a Morris stick, or even a handkerchief, and break a bone, or sustain an eye injury. …

Launching a no win no fee Elstow Morris-dancing accident injury claim

Sometimes, shards of wood can splinter off the Morris-sticks and strike someone causing an injury, and sometimes small children can inadvertently get in the way, and sustain an injury. In cases like these, be it a Morris-dancer, or a spectator, or a child that is injured, AAH, the specialist no win no fee Elstow injury claim lawyer, can be called on to help to launch a personal injury claim. All troupes of public performers, be they acrobats or Morris-dancers, must have public liability insurance.

Schools roundup

  • Excellent Mark Oppenheimer column cites new Cornell study: students deprived of whole milk and chocolate milk as choices “drank less milk, threw more milk away, and bought fewer school lunches over all” [New York Times]
  • “The process of tying curricular standards to federal money actually helps create the ‘ideological circus’ that [David] Brooks decries.” [Rick Hills, Prawfsblawg on Common Core]
  • School choice lawsuits and legislation news updates from Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, and elsewhere [Jason Bedrick, Cato]
  • More applications of New Jersey’s pioneering “anti-bullying” law. And will it stand up in court? [Hans Bader, earlier here, etc.]
  • “When one New Zealand school tossed its playground rules and let students risk injury, the results were surprising” [Sarah Boesfeld, National Post (Canada)] Plenty of discussion of new Hanna Rosin piece “The Overprotected Kid” [Atlantic via Tabarrok; a contrasting view from Max Kennerly]
  • News you can use about applicability of Institutional Review Board regs to research on oneself [Michelle Meyer, Bill of Health] Another new blog about IRBs [Suffocated Science via Instapundit]
  • Community college suspends professor over Google Plus share of Game of Thrones quote on daughter’s T-shirt [Bergen Record]

“USPS To Destroy ‘Just Move’ Stamps Over Safety Concerns”

CannonballStampYou might think this was a parody, but apparently not. The federal government has ordered the destruction of a series of fifteen postage stamps intended to get kids to be more active after sports safety advocates said three of the stamps raised safety concerns, including illustrations depicting kids “skateboarding without kneepads, and doing a headstand without a helmet.” [Postal News]

My own view is that if you’re learning proper skateboarding technique off a postage stamp, you’re doing it wrong. (& Scott Shackford, Reason)

Reactions via Twitter: “One can understand the recall after the disastrous spate of upside-down plane crashes in 1918.” [@tedfrank] “I wonder how they missed the one with explosives on it” [@Bert_Huggins] “USPS thinks kids know what stamps are.” [@UlyssesHL]