Legality of absolving martial arts class of responsibility if injury or death occurs? Although people sign a declaration before skydiving, that they are aware they may die, the parachuting center can still be charged for manslaughter if the parachute doesn't open. Does the same apply for martial arts classes? This is the clause mentioned in the "Liability waiver" section of a martial arts class application form. Am not mentioning which martial art it is. Will just name it X. I am applying for instruction in martial arts activities involving strenuous exercise and personal body contact. I understand that because of this there is always an inherent risk of injury that cannot be eliminated. As a condition of being admitted to train in X at any training premises, I assume the risk of all injuries, losses and damages and do hereby hold the training center, its instructors and agents or persons otherwise connected with the X classes harmless from any and all liability (including legal costs) for all claims, actions or damages due to injuries, losses or damage suffered by me or caused to a third party by me during the course of X training, or arising out of the activities of the X classes, or any other activities occurring on the premises of the training facilities or elsewhere. I have been given the opportunity to seek legal advice regarding the terms of this document. Even if there is a good amount of discipline during classes, if a student waives liability, that gives opportunity for a rogue student or egoistic or inexperienced master to do whatever they please. They can be rough. They can injure the student and claim that the student was not observant or quick enough. Is it wise to sign such a document as-is or can I scratch off any of the conditions there, write a counter condition and sign at the side of the sheet? An example of a counter condition would be "...unless otherwise proven by witnesses that the injury/death was caused by negligence on the part of the student/instructor". I also felt the sentence "damage suffered by me or caused to a third party by me during the course of X training, or arising out of the activities of the X classes, or any other activities occurring on the premises of the training facilities or elsewhere." was too ambiguous.
That waiver for the martial arts class is a contract. One can attempt to negotiate any contract and change the terms to one's liking. It is unlikely, however, that a martial arts studio is going to want to negotiate the terms of their waiver of liability on a student-by-student basis. This will probably leave prospective students with a choice of accepting the terms of the waiver or not taking the class. However, such waivers are unenforceable in some jurisdictions. Louisiana Civil Code article 2004 for example: Art. 2004. Clause that excludes or limits liability Any clause is null that, in advance, excludes or limits the liability of one party for intentional or gross fault that causes damage to the other party. Any clause is null that, in advance, excludes or limits the liability of one party for causing physical injury to the other party. Acts 1984, No. 331, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1985. Here is an interesting article that discusses a lawsuit against Louisiana State University (LSU) over an ankle injury. The court held in that lawsuit that the "release and hold harmless" portion of the waiver was null and couldn't be presented to the jury. However, the parts of the waiver that did not release LSU could be weighed by the jury; these included an obligation of the participant to have adequate health insurance among other provisions. Another article from 2012 regarding such waivers in Virginia mentions: ...,most, if not all states prohibit waivers of liability based on willful or wanton misconduct, gross negligence or intentional acts. A web site titled Sport Waiver has a page, www.sportwaiver.com/about-waivers, that gives advice to businesses which want to use waivers. On the linked page, which is from 2009, it lists each of the states and how they treated such waivers at that time. A business that caters to inherently risky activities will often have participants sign waivers and hold harmless agreements even when those agreements are null as a matter of law. This is done to discourage lawsuits and also, in case of a lawsuit, as a means of demonstrating that the participant knew the risks associated with the activity.
The crime often called "involuntary manslaughter", or simply manslaughter in the second degree, is when, with criminal negligence, he or she causes the death of another person The standards for "criminal negligence" as well as "recklessness" are spelled out here. The first term is defined as: A person is criminally negligent or acts with criminal negligence when he or she fails to be aware of a substantial risk that a wrongful act may occur and his or her failure to be aware of such substantial risk constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation. You can elaborate the above scenario with some details to make this be a criminally negligent act, but I assume the intent is to have this be a tragic accident. So for example, I assume that she did not see the fireman. The law does not require you to die in a fire in case there is a remote possibility that you could injure another person in the course of saving yourself. Unless you add some evil intent on the girl's part ("I don't care if I land on that fireman, that's his job"), a reasonable person would act likewise and save their own life.
I'll use Wisconsin as a jurisdiction. If you file a false death certificate, that's a felony. But you probably wouldn't go that far. It could be disorderly conduct. In Wisconsin disorderly conduct is described as follows: Whoever, in a public or private place, engages in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which the conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor. There's also a statute prohibiting "Disrupting a funeral or memorial service" but it won't apply in this case unless disorderly conduct applies. It would raise the penalty to a class A misdemeanor (or a class I felony if you somehow did it again after being convicted once.) On the civil side, there could be an action for intentional infliction of emotional distress, either for the false report of your death, or for a "corpse" suddenly coming to life. This kind of lawsuit requires "extreme and outrageous conduct", but if this isn't, I don't know what would be.
What does the contract say? When you signed on for these classes, you signed a contract. This will spell out each party’s rights and obligations. Since the rec centre drafted the contract it probably gives them the right to expel you and probably doesn’t require them to reimburse you if they do; but you would need to read it to be sure.
The relevant (criminal) defence is Sec 11(b)(3) [the Civil defence in Sec 11(a)(iii) is an easier one]: (3) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, it shall be a defence to prosecution under this subsection if the defendant committed the offense based on a good faith belief that he was acting to protect himself or herself, a member of his or her family, or any other individual, from bodily harm from any endangered or threatened species. I would say that the defendant could easily demonstrate a "good faith belief that he was acting to ... any other individual, from bodily harm from any endangered or threatened species." Even if there were other ways to rescue the child other than lethal force to the gorilla they all would have necessitated exposing the child to a longer period of danger, exposing another person to danger or may have had less predictable outcomes (e.g. tranquilisers have an onset time) all of which would be unconscionable.
SHORT ANSWER The hold harmless agreement binds you individually if you sign it individually. But, you may have liability to the firm you are contracting with as a matter of law anyway, as an individual, unless that is expressly waived by contract with the person who might otherwise sue you. You should get liability insurance for yourself and your LLC. If the place you are working with doesn't have a waiver in place with students already, you should have your students sign one that is drafted by a lawyer in your particular state. I don't address this is the long answer, but you also shouldn't have signed a W-9 for yourself individually. Only the LLC should have had to fill out the W-9, although this probably doesn't do any great harm. LONG ANSWER Two Main Kinds Of Liability: Contract and Tort There are two main kinds of liability (there are other kinds of liability too, but they come up much less often). One is for entering into a contract with someone and failing to perform that contract causing the other person not to receive the benefit of the bargain, which is called contractual liability. The other kind of liability is called tort liability. Tort liability arises when you have a non-contractual legal duty towards someone (i.e. a duty that arises as a matter of law), you breach that duty, and that duty causes someone to suffer damages. If you also have a contract with that person tort liability can be limited, but not eliminated. The most common form of tort liability by far is liability for &quot;negligence&quot; in which the duty that arise as a matter of law is the duty to use reasonable care under the circumstances to refrain from causing harm to another person. Limiting Contractual Liability It is possible to limit contractual liability by saying so in the express language of the contract. Only parties to a contract have liability under a contract. It is also possible to have broader or narrower scopes of an indemnification clause, or to limit another person's right of subrogation against you (i.e. the right to sue you to pay part of what they had to pay when they are held liable for a wrong you committed). A disclosed agent of a principal (or employee of an employer) including a manager of an LLC, is not contractually liable for breaching the principal's (or employer's) contract. An undisclosed agent or principal (i.e. someone acting on behalf of another but acting as if he or she is acting on his own behalf) is liable on the contract along with the principal or employer. The principal is liable on contracts entered into by a disclosed purported agent with mere &quot;apparent authority&quot; to do so, even if the agent is not actually authorized to enter into the contract, and the principal in that case has recourse only against the agent. So, if you sign a contract in your capacity as a manager of the LLC, rather than in your person capacity, and you do not personally guaranty the contract, you do not have contractual liability on the contract. Typically, to do so, you would sign the contract like this (the italic portion would be signed and underlined; the rest would be printed): XYZ, LLC By Leonara the Great Leonara the Great, as Manager Tort Liability Vicarious Tort Liability Of An Entity A principal or employer, including an entity, has &quot;vicarious&quot; liability for the acts of all of the principal or employer's agents and employees within the scope of their agency or employment, even if the principal or employer prohibited those people from doing that as a matter of policy, contract or a specific instruction not to do so. So, the LLC is liable for anything you do related to the LLC's yoga business. Liability Of Disclosed Agents, Employees, Managers And Officers Of Entities As explained below in a case that is representative of the overwhelming majority rule in the U.S., a human being is responsible to third parties for torts in which he participates in the absence of a waiver for that person, even if acting an an agent or employee or contractor of another company: (I have no idea why I can't get this to appear as text rather than as an image). Limiting Tort Liability Tort liability cannot be limited in the absence of a contract with the person actually harmed, or via a statute that limits tort liability. It is possible to contractually waive tort liability to a person signing a waiver, in advance of a tort occurring, not predicated on contract that arises from negligence or as a matter of strict liability, but not in cases of intentional conduct, reckless conduct, willful and wanton conduct, conduct amounting to bad faith, and conduct that amounts to &quot;gross negligence&quot;. Gross negligence is a failure to act using reasonable care that is so extreme and obvious that is comes close to being reckless in character. Practical Options Almost every business that engaged in activities that could give rise to personal injuries buys liability insurance that covers lawsuits against the business and the employees and agents of the business (i.e. in this case, your LLC and you personally acting on behalf of the LLC) to address this risk. This provides two benefits to you and your company: (1) it provides a lawyer, free of charge, to defend you if you are sued for a covered risk, and (2) it pays awards against you in a lawsuit or via a settlement related to a covered risk, up to a stated dollar amount. Insurance is a near necessity, because not all risks can be waived and even if you have a waiver that is upheld by a court, that doesn't prevent you from having to hire a lawyer to defend yourself in that lawsuit. Just to provide a reality check that this really is what people do, my wife was an independent contractor pilates instructor for a while and while she did that she paid for liability insurance in addition to having waivers signed by her students. (Bigger studios will have waivers for students already in place that cover you.)
To provide an initial answer, without getting to the specific of the 51 statutory standards for self-defense in U.S. states and the exact Canadian standard, as applied to your examples, I'll make some general observations: Self-defense is a justification for doing something that would otherwise be illegal (intentionally using force against someone else). Self-defense justifications include a sense of proportionality. It isn't proper to use more force than is reasonably necessary to achieve the defensive objective. There are basically two levels of self-defensive force: Deadly Force and Non-Deadly Force. Preventing some crimes and harms is statutorily justified to do using deadly force (e.g. to prevent a murder). To prevent other crimes and harms statutes only justify the use of non-deadly force (e.g. to prevent shoplifting). The exact list of crimes in each category varies somewhat. Historically, for example, there have been some U.S. states that have authorized the use of deadly force to prevent a rape that does not put the life of the victim at risk, and others that have not authorized the use of deadly force for that purpose (I don't know if that is still the case). Typically, law enforcement officers are also authorized to use deadly force in some circumstances in which a non-deputized civilian could not. As a practical matter, a use of force that causes death is presumptively considered to be deadly force, even if the means used are not inherently deadly in all circumstances. Meanwhile, a use of force involving the use of a &quot;deadly weapon&quot; such as a firearm, is presumptively considered to be deadly force, even if it doesn't actually kill someone. But both of these &quot;presumptions&quot; (and I am using that term loosely in this answer, rather than with its precise legal meaning), can be overcome with relevant evidence. Mildly shoving someone with hemophilia (or tossing a dish full of peanuts in the face of someone with a severe peanut allergy), without knowing that this person suffers from this condition, is not a use of deadly force within the meaning of laws justifying self-defense, even if it actually ends up causing their death. Similarly, proving that you intended to and did, shoot out the tires of someone's car, or shot their foot, instead of shooting to kill, would not always constitute a use of deadly force for purposes of statutes justifying the use of force in self-defense. Getting to the specifics of the question, the majority rule would be that the use of deadly force is justified in most circumstances to prevent a home invasion burglar from harming you or other people in the residence, and to repel the home invasion burglar from the residence, although some jurisdictions would qualify this in one respect or another. The case that the use of deadly force is justified would be stronger if the home invasion burglar was armed than if he was not, and would be stronger if the homeowner was not physically competent enough to be confident of an ability to dispatch the invader in a non-deadly manner. If deadly force was justified in that circumstance, it wouldn't really matter how you killed him, nor would it matter that you intended to kill him to defense your home and the people in your home. If the law only authorized the use of non-deadly force in the circumstances, for example, because the burglar had seized an envelope full of cash and was fleeing the house, so you were really only using force to protect your property, rather than to protect your home or the safety of the people in it, at that point, then the analysis would get tougher. If you intended to kill the fleeing thief in circumstances when only non-deadly force was authorized, the weapon you used wouldn't matter. You intended to use deadly force, the force you used caused the intended death, and you did those things even though the law didn't authorize you to do so in those circumstances. If you didn't intend to kill the fleeing thief in circumstances when only non-deadly force was authorized, but you ended up killing him anyway (so that you didn't have a prohibited intent behind your actions), then the question would be whether your intent and belief that your actions would not kill him was reasonable under the circumstances. If you caused his death with your bare hands, or with a less lethal weapon (in truth, there is no such thing as a non-lethal weapon), your belief that the thief wouldn't die from your use of force would be more likely to be seen as reasonable. If you caused his death with a lethal weapon, your belief that the thief wouldn't die from your use of force would be less likely to be seen as reasonable. If the jury (or a judge in bench trial) didn't believe you were reasonable in your use of force which you didn't intend to be deadly, then the jury (or judge as the case might be) would not allow a self-defense argument to prevent them from convicting you of some kind of homicide crime. So you would probably be convicted of some form of homicide (perhaps heat of passion manslaughter), although you might still not have the requisite intent for first degree murder in circumstances like that (so that your self-defense argument might end up providing you with an incomplete defense).
If we go by Indian case law (as we should), you have to find a way. The relevant case is K.P. Adbul Gafoor v. New India Assurance Ltd, where appellant drove on a motor cycle on a learner's permit without a licensed driver positioned correctly, in violation of Rule 3 of the Rules, and smacked someone. The bulk of the case is about the insurance and liability consequences of violating the rule: the main point here is that the court deemed this to violate the rules.