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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Removing bolts to create trad paradise 6-May-2007 At 11:58:02 PM kerroxapithecus

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I think there's about as much liability for people cutting bolts as there is for people putting them in. What's the liability? I don't think we know because no one seems to know of a case where an injured climber has sued a person who put up bolts for their negligence in placing them. It seems an unlikely scenario but not unimaginable by any means seeing families can sue if a person dies.
My opinion is that there could be liability and therefore it might not be a good idea to advertise your work. What is more risky is joining with others as a group for the purpose of bolting routes and advertising (talk about in public) this. I have heard of this kind of thing happening. The problem here could be that the group or team establishes a duty of care and could be seen to be advertising themselves as experts resulting in others relying on safety of bolts. Worse still would be a scenario where someone obtains some benefit of value from bolting a route. Schemes receiving donations to fund work on routes are at risk as far as I can see.
In some ways it seems more logical that there would be more liability for cutting a bolt because the risk seems higher so the injury is more forseeable but it still depends on whether there is actually a duty of care. Is it reasonable for climbers to expect that there are bolts all the way up anyway? Do climbers put up climbs for others really or could they claim they do it for themselves and there is no responsibility for anyone else?
Just some thoughts and questions that I don't know the answers to.