Can a club be sued?

HI
I am just curious, can a club be sued. I am a member of a watersport club,it is basicaly a group of people who got together to participate in sport and a club was formed. there is a membership fee and the club has elected members.
If an injury occurs can the elected officials or other club members be held liable.
Is it good enough to have people sign disclaimers or are they a waste of time.
Also if members borrow gear from the club and a third party (friend of relative) uses this equiptment is the club at fault if an incident occurs.
I am not talking about a commercial operation.

Any comments appreciated.

Re: Can a club be sued??

Organisers of a club or committee can be sued. For suit to be successful they have to be negligent in some way. For eg if defective equipment supplied or their expert knowledge or advice relied upon. Disclaimers useless. Insurance best bet.

Re: Can a club be sued??

I have some knowledge in this area.

You can sue a club. As Vanilla says, you would have to prove negligence on the part of the club or committee.

One thing to bear in mind is that that injuries are an accepted part of sport (particularly contact sports) and will occur from time to time in spite of the best efforts of a sporting organisation to conform with best practice in the area of safety.

Generally, if a sport is conforming with best practice and what is reasonable considering the risk of injury in the particular sport, the resources available to the organisation and what is the norm for similar sporting organisations and all equipment safe and in good working order and the participants have been following relevent safety instructions, then it is very difficult to sue the sporting organisation.

Also if members borrow gear from the club and a third party (friend of relative) uses this equiptment is the club at fault if an incident occurs.

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More detail would be needed on this - was equipment ok? is it safe to use borrowed equipment in your sport? Was club aware? Who is responsible for checking equipment? etc. etc.

Insurance best bet.

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Sports organisations dont necessarily have insurance for injuries or medical expenses as this type of insurance is generally very expensive - you'd have to check with the club as to whether such a scheme exists and if you are a member of it. It would be the norm to have Public Liability insurance and member to member liability insurance.

Thanks for the advice,I am a elected club member and just a bit concerned that we could be leaving ourselves open.

Most sports clubs are a member of a National Governing Body (NGB) e.g. FAI for soccer, GAA for gaelic games, IRFU for rugby. As far as I'm aware there are watersports NGBs - Irish Sports Council website will list contact details.

NGBs generally take out Public Liability and member to member insurance for their affilitated clubs (cost is usually included in membership fees). This type of insurance would cover you in the event of a club official being sued.

My advice:

If you are a member of the NGB - contact them and get confirmation of what insurance is in place for your sport. If the NGB does not have insurance covering individual clubs, it at the very least will have arrangements in place with an insurance company that member clubs can become part off.

If you are not a member of the NGB you probably should be as in the event of an incident, the first thing your club will be asked is if it is a member of NGB - clubs outside NGBs are looked on very unfavourably as NGBs usually make sure their members conform with best practice.

There used to be a thing about a member of a club not being able to sue the club and this was relied upon in cases regarding golf accidents (which are a common sports injury apparently).

I don't know if there was a change on this. Really is one for the solicitor and insurer.