Liability Issues

[+jjasks]

I am interested to hear if anyone has ever heard of a city being sued for someone being injured while seeking a cache that is located on city property?

 

I meet with them today and that is there main concern!

 

looking for testimonies

 

thanks, jjasks

Edited June 10, 2004 by jjasks

[+clearpath]

I am interesting to hear if anyone has ever heard of a city being sued for someone being injured while seeking a cache that is located on city property?

 

looking for testimonies

 

thanks, jjasks

Are you looking to sue a city?

[+clearpath]

I just read your Helen Hunt cache description ... now I know why you are looking for testimonials. Good luck. It sounds like this 'city official' has encountered geocaching before. I have several caches hidden in city parks in Overland Park, KS. I have permission from the park rangers office. Their only request is that I do not modify any trees or facilities in placing the cache.

[+jjasks]

Actually I had meeting with a city council today and purposed that we make rules and guidelines that will put there fears of being sued at ease. I feel like there are not many cities that are concerned about libility.

 

We are very close to getting them to open the door, however if I have other experiences out there with success' it will only help. It is interesting that the person that sent me that letter in the Helen Hunt cache you pointed out is now working as a strong advocate! He is really a nice person and he is helping me a lot.

 

I also had the county at this meeting and they have accepted caches in there parks using various guidlines that will be approved by co_admin and the county (co_admin btw, was going to be with me today, but is sick)

 

I think of larger metropolitan cities and how a lot of the caches are in city parks and have they ever had an issue brought up against them.

 

I need to put only a couple of persons at ease on this issue to get them to ok cacches in the parks.

 

TIA

[+cachew nut]

It looks like the guidelines were in place before you placed the cache, I don't know if that would merit voting out an official who worked out an agreement with the local geocaching group. Anyway, back to your question, I haven't heard of any lawsuits about city parks, but I suppose anything is possible. I recall a judgement and loss of driving priviledges for one cacher who placed too close to railroad tracks.

[+Renegade Knight]

Every now and then the issue comes up from a city park. Normally they want liability insurance provided by the cache owner.

 

The long run key to geocaching is the money we spend in our adventurs and travels. That money once in an Elected officals mind will create a slant that geocaching is ok. Then it will flow downhill and parks will allow it. The truth is geocaching is ok, we do spend money and it's a viable park activity. Truthfully if the issue was really a closed container they would have a serious issue with automatic sprinkler heads. Gas cans, the cab of their own vehicles, and a bunch of other things parks take for granted. To their credit parks don't normally act this way unless some jackass did sue them in the past. Once bitten twice shy.

[+jjasks]

No they have no data for there thinking and it was interesting to see that only one person of the 7 I was meeting with had this concern - everyone else was on board with the idea...

 

I think they are going to allow see through containers, which would be great! - but your point is very valid. I really think sometimes these guys are wound so tight that they just cannot see what is going to happen without there consent i.e. letterboxing

[+Alan2]

Geocaching is safer than baseball, soccer, running, tripping, and no more unsafe than "a walk in the park".

 

There are no implements like spikes, cletes, bats and balls, etc.

 

It gets people into the park so unless they want to keep people out to avoid any risk, they don't have much to worry about - or at least not more so than most other park activities, and probably less.

 

Have them check out Cleveland Parks. They have a caching activity and promote it in their parks.

 

Alan

[+Teach2Learn]

The Louisville, KY, metropolitan area, population of about 1 million, allows caching and even encourages it in their extensive park system. There are no liability issues, unlike skateboarding for which they built a huge park but have to require helmets.

 

You may want to use some of the newspaper articles available on the geocaching.com website from some of the larger city papers as support, especially those that quote park directors. I know Louisville's Courier-Journal quoted a park administrator last year.

Edited June 11, 2004 by Teach2Learn

[+CYBret]

Maybe I'm being a tad simplistic, but have you directed them to the Geocaching Disclaimer linked on every cache page?

 

Does that help at all?

 

Bret

[+jjasks]

Maybe I'm being a tad simplistic, but have you directed them to the Geocaching Disclaimer linked on every cache page?

 

Does that help at all?

 

Bret

Well I was looking for a site level disclaimer and never thought to look right in front of me. Great point, maybe this will help some with these guys.

 

thanks. Josh

[+jjasks]

The Louisville, KY, metropolitan area, population of about 1 million, allows caching and even encourages it in their extensive park system. There are no liability issues, unlike skateboarding for which they built a huge park but have to require helmets.

 

You may want to use some of the newspaper articles available on the geocaching.com website from some of the larger city papers as support, especially those that quote park directors. I know Louisville's Courier-Journal quoted a park administrator last year.

Yep I have sent them links to the geocaching news archives. Thanks for the specifics.

 

-Josh

[+briansnat]

Has anyone ever sued a city park after getting hit in the head by a frisbee?

[+The Leprechauns]

Here in Pittsburgh, we obtained a blanket authorization to hide caches responsibly in the city parks. Most of our city parks have five caches each! How we did this was through holding a CITO event in April, organized by Team VaxCave. At the end of the event, with piles of trash from seven separate cleanup projects in the background, I pulled the smiling parks department officials aside and had a chat about geocaching.

 

"So, I am glad this worked out so well for everyone. Hey, you don't have any problem with us hiding our caches in the parks, do you?" A: No! "And if we ever have a problem from a park employee, can we use your name as a contact?" A: Yes!

 

But then the city's lawyer showed up and started asking questions about liability insurance. At my direction, we began dumping the bags of trash that had been collected. One bag was scattered to the wind every thirty seconds until the lawyer shut up and got back into his Lexus.

 

Ummm, anyways, the first two paragraphs are completely true. The liability issue never came up. With the hilly trails in Pittsburgh's City Parks, I am quite certain that more people are injured on mountain bikes every month than have been injured while finding a cache since the beginning of geocaching.

[+jjasks]

Well trying to reason with unreason is challenging at best. They kept giving me "what it" scenarios, what if a terriost were to place a substance in the container and a family were exposed to it, because the 'city' allowed the cache in the park, they claim that it then makes them liable.

 

Trust me you are preaching to the choir.. I am just looking for other cities that are on board and show that Co. Springs is behind the curve.

 

Oh! what was even better was the fact that they actually said even though they are not allowed, we would rather not know (turn a blind eye) if caches are in the parks - then we are not liable - my point to this was I am trying to establish caches in areas that are 'approved' and not create social trails and just plan junky caches in the parks. I also pointed out the fact that they are monitoring the web site to remove them when they are placed (so they do have knowledge and thus in there minds they liable at this point!? Eih!), so in the same conversation they contradicted themselves, wow big surprise.

 

-Josh

Edited June 11, 2004 by jjasks

[+briansnat]

Well trying to reason with unreason is challenging at best. They kept giving me "what it" scenarios, what if a terriost were to place a substance in the container and a family were exposed to it, because the 'city' allowed the cache in the park, they claim that it then makes them liable.

 

So they allow hikers, birdwatchers, picnickers, dogwalkers in the park. What about liability issues there?

 

What if a terrorist hides a substance in a garbage can provided by the park, or under a picnic table provided by the park? Wait, don't bring that up, because some attorney might just adivse them to remove all garbabe cans and picnic tables.

[+jjasks]

See you are using the same logic as I, but they are not working with logic. Oh the county (who was at the meeting) mentioned the garbage cans, that was classic... the county actually understands the logic we are pointing out.

 

To tell you the truth I wanted to use the line from Wanes World;

 

'eh, yeah.. and monkies might fly out of my butt...'

Edited June 11, 2004 by jjasks

[thorin]

If you're going to be preparing communications and documents for city officials you may want to check this out:

 

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/their.html

 

Edit: Ignore my post if it seems "crusty" or anything like that. I've just been noticing an increasing number of posts where people don't get the simple things like "there, they're, their"

 

Thorin

Edited June 11, 2004 by thorin

[+CYBret]

If you're going to be preparing communications and documents for city officials you may want to check this out:

 

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/their.html

 

Edit: Ignore my post if it seems "crusty" or anything like that. I've just been noticing an increasing number of posts where people don't get the simple things like "there, they're, their"

 

Thorin

You appear to have a quotation mark where you want an apostrophe on your page (They"re).

 

If this is the kind of thing that gets to you, you might want to read Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Then again...maybe it would just make matters worse.

 

Bret

[thorin]

 

Unfortunately it's not my page....though I did notice the quote vs apostrophe thing when I was there as well.

 

Tks for the linkage I hadn't heard of that book before but it actually looks pretty good.

 

Thorin

[Ferreter5]

One of the biggest reasons parks raise the liability issue occurs when they run the idea of geocaching past their lawyers.

 

Lawyers have an instant reflex system that makes them respond with "Liability issue!" whenever anyone asks them a question. They can't help it. They're trained that way, even if it makes no real sense for the given question.

 

Q: Should we paint the picnic shelter green or blue?

A: Liability issue!

 

Q: Would you like fries with that, sir?

A: Liability issue!

 

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

[+jjasks]

If you're going to be preparing communications and documents for city officials you may want to check this out:

 

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/their.html

 

Edit: Ignore my post if it seems "crusty" or anything like that. I've just been noticing an increasing number of posts where people don't get the simple things like "there, they're, their"

 

Thorin

Ok thanks - I am done with my presentation to the city and it went great - Just one person was raining on my presentation. Even his boss was their (just kidding) there and he seemed to have acceptance - I am just trying to give weight to this bogus argument.

[+jjasks]

If you're going to be preparing communications and documents for city officials you may want to check this out:

 

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/their.html

 

Edit: Ignore my post if it seems "crusty" or anything like that. I've just been noticing an increasing number of posts where people don't get the simple things like "there, they're, their"

 

Thorin

You appear to have a quotation mark where you want an apostrophe on your page (They"re).

 

If this is the kind of thing that gets to you, you might want to read Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Then again...maybe it would just make matters worse.

 

Bret

I JuST WAnTT to no whe'ere you findd ThIS Stufff

[magellan315]

It sounds like what you need are examples of cities who have formal Geocaching policies in place and are succesfull? If this is what you need, then I'm sure we can provide you with links to these cities/policies.

[+jjasks]

It sounds like what you need are examples of cities who have formal Geocaching policies in place and are succesfull? If this is what you need, then I'm sure we can provide you with links to these cities/policies.

BINGO! Yes they requested other cities example/policies/codes/rules whatever they can use to get a warm and fuzzy.

 

COAdmin is out, so while out, I wanted to see what I might dig up on the forum.

 

He was going to go to the meeting with me, however he became ill. I feel that he would have been able to get this data and while the meeting is fresh in there minds (The City) I wanted to hit them with the data.

 

any help while he is offline would be great.

 

thanks

[+briansnat]

BINGO! Yes they requested other cities example/policies/codes/rules whatever they can use to get a warm and fuzzy.

 

You can try a few of these:

 

Arkansas State Parks One of the better policies out there.

 

St Johns Water Management District in Fla. Might be the best one. Submit a form and if they say yes, you're good to go.

 

Orange County Parks (CA) Though their 3 feet from the trail rule is silly.

 

Maricopa County Parks (AZ)

 

PA State Parks Another pretty good policy.

 

Dupage County (ILL) This one is pretty stupid.

 

Winnabago Conunty (Iowa)

 

Lexington Fayette County Parks (KY)

 

Three Rivers District Parks

 

Cleveland Metroparks They place their own caches, but I don't think they allow individuals to place them.

 

Basically, you'll see everything from attitudes like "caches are OK, just be careful where you place them", to the bizarre rules of the Dupage County parks. Most are in between with some sort of permit, or approval process.

 

You'll find everything from some jurisdictions embracing geocaching to the point where they list caches on their website and sometimes even place caches theirselves, to outright bans. Some that take a "I know nooothing" approach and let geocaching go on with a wink, to others who send out employees on 'seek and destroy the cache' missions.

Edited June 12, 2004 by briansnat

[+norbu]

For quite a few examples, go to Geocaching Policy information site. For an example of a policy that I had a hand in creating, check out the

San Dieguito River ParkGeocaching Policy. My husband is a ranger there, and he did all the hard work, I just helped with some minor points, did the typing, and the layout. We made an especial effort to make the policy geocacher-friendly. So far, so good.

 

Good luck with yours!

[+SherwoodForest]

BINGO! Yes they requested other cities example/policies/codes/rules whatever they can use to get a warm and fuzzy.

 

Cleveland Metroparks They place their own caches, but I don't think they allow individuals to place them.

 

Okay, let me set the record straight on this. As a geocaching volunteer for Cleveland Metroparks, and someone who has hidden six permitted geocaches within the Cleveland Metroparks...

 

Cleveland Metroparks has a permit policy in place for privately placed geocaches (in fact, it was one of the earliest, implemented in Spring of 2002) within their parks. Most of the other local county metroparks that have finally gotten on board with geocaching have basically used the CMP as a model.

 

I think BrianSnat was thinking of Geauga Park District (just east of Cleveland), which hid their own caches in 2003 (And in 2004) but did not allow individually-placed caches in their parks in 2003. As of Feb 2004, they have had a permit policy in place, and there are currently 2 privately-placed caches in GPD (and probably more this summer is the waters ever go down (A spot I marked for a possible cache would have been repeatedly under the Cuyahoga River this spring))

[thorin]

If you're going to be preparing communications and documents for city officials you may want to check this out:

 

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/their.html

 

Edit: Ignore my post if it seems "crusty" or anything like that. I've just been noticing an increasing number of posts where people don't get the simple things like "there, they're, their"

 

Thorin

Ok thanks - I am done with my presentation to the city and it went great - Just one person was raining on my presentation. Even his boss was their (just kidding) there and he seemed to have acceptance - I am just trying to give weight to this bogus argument.

All good....it's nice to see people campaigning for GCing. GLHF!

 

Thorin