Opinion ID: 202864
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Waiver of Liability.

Text: The plaintiff also objects to a separate provision of the Contract. That provision, which concerns personal property that health-club members may choose to bring onto the premises, reads: We urge you not to bring valuables into the Club. You agree that we will not be liable for the loss or theft of, or damage to, the personal property of members or guests. The plaintiff argues that this language constitutes a waiver and, as such, violates an HCSCA provision that reads: [N]o contract for health club services may contain any provisions whereby the buyer agrees not to assert against the seller . . . any claim or defense arising out of the health club services contract or the buyer's activities at the health club. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93, § 80. The plaintiff also suggests that the same contractual language violates a separately codified statutory prohibition against waivers of consumer rights. See id. § 101. The plaintiff's claim, under either statute, depends upon the notion that the contractual provision actually effects a waiver. It does not. Waiver is famously defined as an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938). Waivers come in various shapes and sizes. Some are express; others are inferable from conduct or language consistent with and indicative of an intent to relinquish voluntarily a particular right [such] that no other reasonable explanation . . . is possible. Att'y Gen. v. Indus. Nat'l Bank, 380 Mass. 533, 404 N.E.2d 1215, 1218 n. 4 (1980) (quoting Buffum v. Chase Nat'l Bank, 192 F.2d 58, 60-61 (7th Cir.1951)). In the context of the right to seek legal recourse, waivers ordinarily must be explicit. See Blanchette v. Sch. Comm. of Westwood, 427 Mass. 176, 692 N.E.2d 21, 27 (1998); see also Willett v. Herrick, 258 Mass. 585, 155 N.E. 589, 593 (1927) (finding release of all claims when release terms were plain and distinct and disposed of all causes of action). The contractual language identified by the plaintiff does not fit this mold. On its face, the provision does not purport to prohibit a contracting consumer from seeking legal redress against Bally. The plaintiff argues that a violation of the HCSCA's prohibition on waivers can occur even in the absence of explicit language barring access to a judicial forum. However, the disposition that she cites, Holiday Universal, Inc. v. Haber, 1990 Mass.App. Div. 69 (Mass.Dist.Ct.), is not helpful to her cause. The language of the agreement at issue there is much stronger than the language of the Contract. The plaintiff in Haber had agreed to assume the risk of [any] injury and to indemnify [the defendant] from any and all liability arising out of use of the facilities. Id. at 70. Nothing in the Haber decision, fairly read, compels a finding of waiver here. In all events, the plaintiff's attempt to bring the Contract under the statutory proscription of waivers suffers from an even more obvious infirmity. If a waiver is, as we have said, an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege, the waiving party must have a right or privilege to waive. Under Massachusetts law, customers  in the absence of an agreement to the contrary [6]  do not have a vested right of recovery against business owners for the loss of personal property brought onto business premises. See, e.g., D.A. Schulte, Inc. v. N. Terminal Garage Co., 291 Mass. 251, 197 N.E. 16, 19-20 (1935) (holding garage owner not responsible for contents of stored truck). The plaintiff has pointed to no statutory provision creating such a right of recovery in the health-club context. It therefore stretches the definition of waiver well past the breaking point to read the language of the Contract as a waiver. On that reading, the plaintiff would be relinquishing a phantom right. To sum up, the clause in the Contract upon which the plaintiff relies does not effect a waiver. That clause is nothing more than a notice provision, outlining the parties' baseline rights and obligations under the law. As such, it does not violate either of the statutory prohibitions on waiver noted by the plaintiff.