Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Accidents & Injuries

Report Accidents and Injuries

Topic Date User

QUT and affiliates sued for $8m Kangaroo Point 18-May-2017 At 4:29:08 PM tnd

Message

A word on this from my many years' experience on the Sydney Rockclimbing Club committee, in the period after we ceased being able to obtain third party liability insurance, and so stopped running climbing trips for a while.

When the law in NSW subsequently changed to make accidents due to "obviously dangerous activities" very difficult to blame on anyone else, we were lucky enough to get (pro-bono) legal advice on a process by which we could resume club-organised group climbing.

Both the annual membership form and individual trip sign-on sheets now exhaustively list the ways that the activity can maim or kill you. If you willingly acknowledge that, then there's no use calling a lawyer if you get hurt. Contingency lawyers probably wouldn't touch one of those cases now, you'd be paying their fees up front.

In this case, Qld law might differ, and the Uni might have insurers, who could well choose to pay out a lower sum, which is still less than their legal costs to win the case. Basically, go-away money.

Regarding the NZ ACC scheme, isn't our National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) supposed to be the equivalent?

Amazingly, I too agree with ODH, and similarly have had only one person take me off belay without letting me know. He got the same treatment as ODH described.