From: jonb@Ingres.COM (Jon Berger)
Subject: Re: Liability (was Re: CDSS Group Directory)
Reply-To: jonb@ingres.com
Organization: Ingres, an ASK Company
Distribution: na
Date: 28 Dec 92 19:00:36 GMT

In article <1992Dec24.124546.28073@cbnewsl.cb.att.com>, htr@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (helena.t.robinson) writes:
>At least in New Jersey, dance groups that wish to use public schools for dances 
>must provide proof of at least $1 million (you read it right) worth of 
>insurance.  Fortunately, back in the late 70s (not long after I started 
>dancing), the Northern NJ Square Dancers Association established a program for 
>member clubs that offered such coverage at (fairly) reasonable rates.  There 
>was one year when the rates jumped mightily due to a woman who twisted her 
>ankle at a dance.  (To add insult to injury, her husband - a non-dancer - urged 
>her to file a claim, and some sort of settlement was reached.  Not fun for 
>those involved, especially since she was wearing improper footwear and nothing 
>could be done about it at the time.  Sigh.)

I don't want to sound overly cynical, and I'm sure this isn't universally
true, but it's been my experience that, in many cases, it's the insurance
that causes the lawsuit.  It's the "deep pockets" thing: what's the
point of suing someone -- a small dance club, say -- that doesn't have
any money?  What lawyer is going to take a case like that on a contingency
basis?  On the other hand, if they're insured for a million clams, well,
hey, now maybe there's a good reason to sue; at least, you'll certainly
hear that from a lot of lawyers who want a piece of the action.

The California Morris community had an experience like this: a convention
of Morris dancers (what we call an "ale", named after its most prominent
and universal feature) was performing at a theme park -- name withheld
because _I_ don't want to get sued -- and one of the dancers sprained an
ankle badly, in the course of doing a very energetic leapfrog dance on
an asphalt surface.  (Morris dancers will know what I mean by "leapfrog
dance", and others can probably imagine.)  The dancer ended up suing
the park, and they ended up making some sort of trouble or other for
the umbrella organization that the local Morris team got its insurance
through, and there was much legal brouhaha.  I don't have all the gory
details, but I'll just betcha none of this would ever have happened if
the ankle had gotten sprained on a city street, or some other place that
wasn't attached to a bucks-laden insurance company, terrified of negative
publicity, and generally a sitting duck for ambulance-chasing Esquires.

Of course, if your hall/church/rehearsal space/whatever requires
insurance, then insurance you've gotta have.  No argument there; there's
nothing you can do about it.  Of course, often the reason they require
it is that their insurance company requires it.  What a charming industry.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   -__ __ /_   Jon Berger              "If you push something hard enough,
  //_// //_/   jonb@ingres.com          it will fall over."
_/ ---------                              - Fudd's First Law of Opposition