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Safety? Liability?


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OK, it's been a rough couple of years for the B's. Every time I've been brainless enough to say "everything bad that could possibly happen, has", something worse comes along. So, with that snakebitten mentality, let me ask -

If I have a cache placed near the top of a high bluff, And there's no fence, and if one has to get within, say 3 feet of the dropoff to grab the cache, and if the cache can absolutely be retrieved with no danger to the participant.....how strongly do I have to word the cache description? Anybody could come along here and do something incredibly stupid and go over the edge, but even though I have a fair amount of vertigo, I have no problem with the cache. I'm thinking it's perfectly safe, but with my recent track record, I'm envisioning the worst.

Thanks!

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Why do you think that a strongly worded warning would protect you? It won't.

 

I've been involved, as a witness, in a lawsuit involving injury in a dangerous pastime. There was a real honest to goodness lawyer crafted written and signed liability disclaimer but still, there was a lawsuit.

 

If this concerns you, make sure that you are either worth nothing (the lawyers follow the money) or make sure that you have insurance.

 

A written discription on the cache page won't do anything.

 

Paul

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Well, as for the replies so far,

I AM worth nothing, so that's not a problem. I'm more concerned that nobody gets hurt, and I don't think anyone should. I expect that I'm just paranoid.

As far as moving the cache back a bit.....I would do that, but this place, to my eye, is devoid of hiding places; and I'm only hiding a film canister. Yet, the view is beautiful, and it's a spot I'd like to bring others to for their own enjoyment. There is a bicycle track that gets closer to the edge than the cache.....

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et, the view is beautiful, and it's a spot I'd like to bring others to for their own enjoyment.
Then make it a multi. I did this for one of my caches. I had a spit of land I wanted people to visit, but it was only about 5 feet wide with water on both sides and a fisherman's path down the middle. No space for a cache at all. I took a GPS reading near the tip and put some blaze orange tape around a tree. On it I wrote down the thousandths (minus 100 just to confuse any muggles) of the real container. People have to visit the spot and the get a real cache, they seem to like it also.

 

Why the orange tape? This is to make appear not to be a hard multi. (The bushwhack is nasty enough!) You only have to "find" one thing.

 

You will need the reviewer's approval to change the cache and frankly, they may want you to archive this one and create a new one.

 

Paul

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I feel that as long as the danger is not hidden you should be fine. Of course, you might want to mention to be very attentive of kids and pets, and explain why. After that it's the responsibility of the seeker.

 

Personally, I wouldn't place anything that close to a danger which will make someone search very hard. Placing an evil micro near a drop off would be very irresponsible as too many folks will start putting all of their focus on the micro and forget they are only a step away from their doom. I'd make the hide obvious or an offset.

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Well, thanks all for the input. It's not an evil micro. To me it's pretty obvious. (Guess it would be, as I put it there.) Mr B says pull it, so I suppose I must. It's really not dangerous - believe me, we're not named the Bumbling B's for nothing, and I certainly didn't fall off..... I've been to other caches that have scared me a little, only because I'm such a klutz.

I know who would likely be FTF, and I could wait and get his opinion, but that's kind of a cop-out, 'cus I know what he'd say. He'll climb any mountain and swim mighty rivers with his GPSr between his teeth, and he'd say I'm being ridiculous. The cache is pretty much a 1 /1 unless you take 3 steps the wrong way, in which case it becomes a 5. Or an 86, as it were.....Darn.

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(Sorry, it was Miller Lite)

 

Lawn Chair Larry

1982 Honorable Mention

Confirmed True by Darwin

(1982, California) Larry Walters of Los Angeles is one of the few to contend for the Darwin Awards and live to tell the tale. "I have fulfilled my 20-year dream," said Walters, a former truck driver for a company that makes TV commercials. "I'm staying on the ground. I've proved the thing works."

 

Larry's boyhood dream was to fly. But fates conspired to keep him from his dream. He joined the Air Force, but his poor eyesight disqualified him from the job of pilot. After he was discharged from the military, he sat in his backyard watching jets fly overhead.

 

He hatched his weather balloon scheme while sitting outside in his "extremely comfortable" Sears lawnchair. He purchased 45 weather balloons from an Army-Navy surplus store, tied them to his tethered lawnchair dubbed the Inspiration I, and filled the 4' diameter balloons with helium. Then he strapped himself into his lawnchair with some sandwiches, Miller Lite, and a pellet gun. He figured he would pop a few of the many balloons when it was time to descend.

 

Larry's plan was to sever the anchor and lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his back yard, where he would enjoy a few hours of flight before coming back down. But things didn't work out quite as Larry planned.

 

When his friends cut the cord anchoring the lawnchair to his Jeep, he did not float lazily up to 30 feet. Instead, he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon, pulled by the lift of 42 helium balloons holding 33 cubic feet of helium each. He didn't level off at 100 feet, nor did he level off at 1000 feet. After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 16,000 feet.

 

At that height he felt he couldn't risk shooting any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really find himself in trouble. So he stayed there, drifting cold and frightened with his beer and sandwiches, for more than 14 hours. He crossed the primary approach corridor of LAX, where Trans World Airlines and Delta Airlines pilots radioed in reports of the strange sight.

 

Eventually he gathered the nerve to shoot a few balloons, and slowly descended. The hanging tethers tangled and caught in a power line, blacking out a Long Beach neighborhood for 20 minutes. Larry climbed to safety, where he was arrested by waiting members of the LAPD. As he was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked him why he had done it. Larry replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."

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Unfortunately here in the US. you can be sued for anything. I'm really afraid that this will eventually be the down fall of Geocacheing.com and Geocacheing in general. One of these days someone will do something stupid and hurt them self and then turn around and sue them out of business because of it.

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Unfortunately here in the US. you can be sued for anything. I'm really afraid that this will eventually be the down fall of Geocacheing.com and Geocacheing in general. One of these days someone will do something stupid and hurt them self and then turn around and sue them out of business because of it.

While it is true that anyone can bring a lawsuit for any reason, this doesn't mean that they will win damages. GC.com has a pretty good disclaimer linked from all cache pages. (I think you also have to agree to it when you create an account.)

 

I suspect that an agressive defense will keep them out of too much trouble.

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I certainly did bring up the liability issue, but I'm thinking safety is the more important concern. If I make it really clear on the website that children and pets need to be protected, and that the seeker need not put themselves in danger to retrieve the cache, could I leave it there with confidence? Again, there are WAY more tougher caches out there; this one is easy. Only a total lack of focus would get one in trouble.

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Although I do agree with pretty much everything these posts have said I would like to add one thing.

 

Eventhough you are worth "nothing" judgements are good for 10 years and can be renewed after that. Plus here in Ca if you have a judgement against you your driving privilege can be revoked.

 

Just food for thought.

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Unfortunately here in the US. you can be sued for anything. I'm really afraid that this will eventually be the down fall of Geocacheing.com and Geocacheing in general. One of these days someone will do something stupid and hurt them self and then turn around and sue them out of business because of it.

While it is true that anyone can bring a lawsuit for any reason, this doesn't mean that they will win damages. GC.com has a pretty good disclaimer linked from all cache pages. (I think you also have to agree to it when you create an account.)

 

I suspect that an agressive defense will keep them out of too much trouble.

 

I agree that a good defense would probably keep them out of trouble, I just figure that paying for the defense would be the killer.

 

Sure. Just tell people to stay away from the edge and keep their kids on the leash.

 

Thats probably the best that could be done, and them hope people heed your advice.

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Double darn!

 

I live in a historic little town, and I'm planning a multi that involves looking at the dates and names of old buildings. I suppose someone could get so engrossed in caching that they would cross the street without paying attention and get run over. Isn't disaster possible with most any cache? With life?

I had a brainstorm and wrote to my local approver. Told her the exact details about the cache, and will follow her advice.

It's a really pretty view! If you come, don't fall off the cliff, OK?

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I don't really think the terrain ratings cover this issue.

 

If the cache owner plans for you to climb up to get the the cache, its clearly a 5, but it could be a one or a two if coming from the top.

 

It raises an interesting point, since we're currently setting one up very, very similar. Liability aside, if you're going to place on the edge of a big ledge, how should you approach setting up your cache page? :D Ours would require climbing up and down a medium high ledge repeatedly along the length of it or working a two-cacher team to avoid the climb. If I'm not mistaken terrain 5 specifically calls for special equipment while climbing steep slopes does not.

 

Trying not to stray from topic, but this all relates to the liability!

Edited by fox-and-the-hound
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It raises an interesting point, since we're currently setting one up very, very similar. Liability aside, if you're going to place on the edge of a big ledge, how should you approach setting up your cache page? :D Ours would require climbing up and down a medium high ledge repeatedly along the length of it or working a two-cacher team to avoid the climb. If I'm not mistaken terrain 5 specifically calls for special equipment while climbing steep slopes does not.

 

Trying not to stray from topic, but this all relates to the liability!

It wouldn't be a five. It would probably be a 4 or 4.5. Run it through clayjar's rating system.

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I've done caches that are very close to the edge of cliffs. We did one last weekend where there was NO warning about it :D So surprise to us when we get clsoer and realize we have to walk on a tiny little path right next to a cliff with our kids. Ugg. It was only about a 25 foot drop onto rocks and then a muddy lake, so survivial was possible. But I would have appreciated a warning of some kind before we got there.

 

We've also done ones that have a good warning on the page. With those we do them and have one person go find the cache and have one person stay with the kids at a safe spot close to the cache.

 

I think if you put a fair warning, aka watch your step, not suitable for kids the last 300 feet, cliff nearby, you know that sort of thing, maybe in bold even, your cache will be fine and people will hunt it!

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Thanks. I think I've overstated my case here. It's a totally easy cache, no climbing or anything invoved. 200 feet from your car. Flat ground all the way. The only question is proximity to the cliff. I do appreciate the posts concerning more challenging caches; and they make me more certain that mine is perfectly fine.

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Even if you moved it back, someone’s GPSr could indicate the cache is actually over the side of the cliff, right? I hunted one on Rattlesnake like that. I didn’t walk off the edge.

 

Leave it as is. When they see the edge, they’ll stop (or they won’t, whatever).

 

EDIT: Welcome back!!!

Edited by Criminal
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My take on this. (not a lawyer)

 

Anyone can sue you for anything.

 

But why would they take tha time and trouble if they have little chance of suceeding.

 

I place a short reminder on my cache pages that risks and responsiblities are up to the cache finder to take or not by hunting the cache.

 

Here is what you as the cache hider are respondsible for; not leading a person blindly into a hidden hazzard that you know may get them. Point out any HIDDEN hazard that you know about. Certainly an element of safe caching if not a legal respondsibility. Obvious hazzards like visible big cliffs that any reasonalbe person should know not to step over is up to the cache finder.

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Unfortunately here in the US. you can be sued for anything. I'm really afraid that this will eventually be the down fall of Geocacheing.com and Geocacheing in general. One of these days someone will do something stupid and hurt them self and then turn around and sue them out of business because of it.

 

Yup. In the US people sue fast food restaurants when they spill coffee in their laps, claiming the coffee shouldn't have been so hot.

 

After moving from rural Maine to urban California, I was very dismayed to find that I can't swim in fresh water anywhere near here after about 5pm when the lifeguard goes off duty at the nearest fresh water public swimming hole. (castaic lake)The cops come by and force everyone out of the water, because they don't want to spend the funds for the lifeguard and they're afraid of being sued.

 

Now if I can't even swim during prime-time for swimming on a warm afternoon, just because of this frivolous law-suit garbage, then is it really a free country?

 

I say F it! Post the cache. Do the responsible thing and warn people. After that, it's up to them to be responsible for their own actions.

 

They might sue. Yes. But there's nothing you can do to prevent people from suing anyway. You gotta take a risk sometime. So don't let it ruin your life, and all our lives by having fewer caches to hunt, and not being able to swim, etc.

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My take on this. (not a lawyer)

 

Anyone can sue you for anything.

 

But why would they take tha time and trouble if they have little chance of suceeding.

 

I place a short reminder on my cache pages that risks and responsiblities are up to the cache finder to take or not by hunting the cache.

 

Here is what you as the cache hider are respondsible for; not leading a person blindly into a hidden hazzard that you know may get them. Point out any HIDDEN hazard that you know about. Certainly an element of safe caching if not a legal respondsibility. Obvious hazzards like visible big cliffs that any reasonalbe person should know not to step over is up to the cache finder.

A few thoughts:

1) Whould it be your responsibility to show that you didn't know about the hidden hazzard?

2) Who decides what is reasonalbe?

3) Can you jump over the hazzards in your orange car?

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My take on this. (not a lawyer)

 

Anyone can sue you for anything.

 

But why would they take tha time and trouble if they have little chance of suceeding.

 

I place a short reminder on my cache pages that risks and responsiblities are up to the cache finder to take or not by hunting the cache.

 

Here is what you as the cache hider are respondsible for; not leading a person blindly into a hidden hazzard that you know may get them. Point out any HIDDEN hazard that you know about. Certainly an element of safe caching if not a legal respondsibility. Obvious hazzards like visible big cliffs that any reasonalbe person should know not to step over is up to the cache finder.

A few thoughts:

1) Whould it be your responsibility to show that you didn't know about the hidden hazzard?

2) Who decides what is reasonalbe?

3) Can you jump over the hazzards in your orange car?

 

Also not a lawyer or anything even close to lawyer, never sued or been sued. I'm just thinking on the keyboard(not always a good move for me).

 

As for why: If they think there is money to be had someone would try it. Not only would the cache owner be sued but Geocacheing.com, Groundspeak, Jeramey, the GPS manufacture, who ever made the shoes they were wearing, and anybody else they could think of.

 

1) I think if you are being sued it is your responsibility to prove.

2) The courts: From what I understand That is the main question that has to be answered. "What would a Reasonable person do."

3)I suppose if you attached wing & rockets or some thing.

Edited by rynd
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Unfortunately here in the US. you can be sued for anything. I'm really afraid that this will eventually be the down fall of Geocacheing.com and Geocacheing in general. One of these days someone will do something stupid and hurt them self and then turn around and sue them out of business because of it.

 

Yup. In the US people sue fast food restaurants when they spill coffee in their laps, claiming the coffee shouldn't have been so hot.

 

That's a whole different issue. People will sue (and often win) against any entity with 'deep pockets'. A lawyer isn't going to waste his or her time on chasing a geocacher.

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(Sorry, it was Miller Lite)

 

Lawn Chair Larry

...snip

 

The best part of that one was the call to air traffic control. The pilot calmly stated that at 16,000 feet, off his right wing, there was a man in a lawn chair with a gun. :D

 

Thanks, Sue Gremlin! This story always makes me collapse in giggles. And, it's true!

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I've often thought that the only fly in the geocaching ointment is America's personal injury "system" (for lack of a better word). Everyone has heard the horror stories of the spilled coffee cases, so I'm not going to beat that horse any more. There's lots of PI attorneys out there, and they all want that house in Malibu and/or Aspen. I don't know how big GC is. Not very right now I bet. But I'm sure there's a big fat liability insurance policy that's gonna get some legal eagle's attention. They just better be sure that I'm not on the jury. Been there and done that. (I'm no lawyer either, but I did take a B-law class in Grad school.)

 

My $0.02.

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at the end of the day if someone is that dumb to walk off a cliff then they are as likely to injure themselves walking along a flat smooth path so it doesn't matter where you put the cache!

 

darwin awards are great....but a living nominee. oxymoron. ok he's dumb but he survived...so he is so dumb he couldn't even pass that test! :grin:

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Thanks. I think I've overstated my case here. It's a totally easy cache, no climbing or anything invoved. 200 feet from your car. Flat ground all the way. The only question is proximity to the cliff. I do appreciate the posts concerning more challenging caches; and they make me more certain that mine is perfectly fine.

 

How do you think it will be for night caching during a period of weak sat. coverage? Flat and smooth all the way out to 25' beyond the cliff edge? Is heavy fog common in that area? Is the cliff edge undercut leaving a foot or two of very weak soils?

 

You might want to check out Seth!'s suggestion for posting a warning on your cache page if you haven't already done so. There have been topics on this subject in the past where it has been suggested that it might be very important to post a disclosure about any dangers that you are aware of. This might help prevent a lawsuit from turning into a judgment against you. Anyone can sue you but there might be steps you can take to help you prevail. (And we haven't yet discussed attorney costs necessary to help you prevail.) (And we haven't discussed how you might actually feel about someone getting hurt badly because your cache was close to the edge and for how many years you might remember it.)

Edited by Team Sagefox
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at the end of the day if someone is that dumb to walk off a cliff then they are as likely to injure themselves walking along a flat smooth path so it doesn't matter where you put the cache!

 

darwin awards are great....but a living nominee. oxymoron. ok he's dumb but he survived...so he is so dumb he couldn't even pass that test! :grin:

 

You got the moron part right!

He's one of the recipients of the Darwin Awards Honorable Mentions.

Those are the people who aren't quite smart enough to get the actual Darwin Award. They can still contribute to the gene pool and try again!

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