OSU Athletes Sign Waiver
Ohio State student-athletes were ready and excited to get back to campus and start voluntary workouts for the upcoming college football season. But the Buckeyes first had to sign risk waivers before they were permitted to participate in those training sessions.
The Columbus Dispatch reported that players were encouraged to sing a “Buckeye Pledge” before being allowed to return to campus for voluntary workouts. Essentially, the waiver served as an acknowledgement from Ohio State student-athletes that there’s an assumed health risk as campus begins to welcome back individuals.
they had to have someone read the big words to them....
Bobby Carpenter would be of no help.
Yeah, Katzenmoyer is out too....
That wouldn't surprise me. Whenever you see their fans it always takes two people to spell Ohio.
Hmmm...so the modus operandi for many events seems to be a liability waiver, but correct me if I'm wrong but that doesn't protect entities from "gross negligence", i.e.knowingly participating or asking others to participate in an activity in which the risks are known to be beyond acceptable standards. I've always said that liability will be the sole decider on "re-opening" and I'm still not convinced this is gonna fly.
The idea of asking the athletes to sign this seems really gross to me.
Calling it the “Buckeye Pledge” is especially gross.
Even worse, they were asked to sing it.
I agree. Its one thing for fans, but the players..I don’t see how this flies. What happens if one of them doesn’t want to sign the waiver and then isn’t allowed to participate/be on the team. Do they lose the scholarship? If it’s professional, do they get cut from the team and the contract voided? Obviously it’s not applicable to all sports (baseball, I believe, is guaranteed).
It could easily be viewed as coercion in my mind. Will definitely be watching closely.
What do people think was going to happen? People want normalcy without a vaccine. Sorry - can’t have it. Now ... if you want to sign a liability waiver that says if you get sick and something bad happens to you, or you catch something and pass it on to a loved one who gets really sick, then hey ... can’t come back and sue us because we got the get out of jail free card.
you can sign off on gross negligence, too. the question is would the possibility of infection that could be traced to and blamed upon a school (more difficult than it sounds) be something that can be waived? also, most state institutions will have the now well-known 'qualified immunity'. ohio would be the benefactor of that, but not private schools.
you can sign off on gross negligence, too.
In which states under which conditions, Mr. Lawyer?
I did 30 seconds of legal research on the subject!
- As far as I can tell, Cain v. Cleveland Parachute, (incredible negligence case name!) 457 N.E.2d 1185 is the relevant Ohio precedent, which says you can't waive "willful or wanton" negligence (a/k/a gross negligence in other states). (Also, the Ohio torts treatise sucks, bummer.) Whether this is an act of gross negligence, I couldn't say without a lot more research.
- Do you really think causation is the hard argument here? I mean, preponderance of the evidence + lots of people in a tight area working out very hard. I don't see it being a problem, but then again I'm not a negligence litigator.
- Correct me if I'm wrong -- never sued the government -- but doesn't QI only apply to government employees, not actual government actors? Like, I can win a 1983 against the police department for some brutality even if the officers are protected by QI, no?
These waivers will never hold up in court.
Eh, they might hold up in Columbus courts...
Gross negligence is a state-specific standard that's often more complex than you would think (so are waiver rules generally -- I would not be shocked if this was unenforcable, but am not making any predictions).
Even assuming these waivers are unenforcable, they serve a value for institutions. They dissuade people from consulting lawyers or considering lawsuits.
check out the pneumonia deaths last week in this country vs covid and i think you'll start finding that such standards are increasingly becoming acceptable.
People keep making this comparison and it is not accurate. Pneumonia does not affect nearly as many parts of the body as C-19. Nor does it cause as much long term health issues.
All types of pneumonia (bacterial,fungal,viral) can cause scarring of the lungs and other long term damage, what are the proven non-pneumonia long term health issues associated with Covid?
My otherwise perfectly healthy 34 year old cousin had a covid induced stroke.
She spent a week in the hospital and is facing long term PT to regain normal speech and muscle movements.
Personally, I've never heard of someone having a stroke from pneumonia. Especially at that age.
Younger patients suffering strokes after flu-like symptoms is not unique to Covid
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324339#Risk-of-stroke-higher-for-up-to-1-year
I think the idea is that covid deaths are being labeled as pneumonia deaths.
Specifically, Florida has been accused of doing that. But it seems to be unfounded.
In a nutshell, someone saw the number of Florida deaths where pneumonia was mentioned as present in the body on the certificate, and compared it to prior years where pneumonia was listed as the underlying cause of death, not realizing that these are two different counts. Multiple conditions can be listed on a death certificate (very common for something like COVID-19 that mainly kills people with comorbidities) whereas there is officially one underlying cause of death. The number of deaths that pneumonia officially caused won't be determined until later on.
Eh, it's not necessarily unfounded...yet. All this says is that it's based on provisional data and we don't yet know by how much.
Florida is absolutely undercounting Covid deaths just like everywhere else because it's simply impossible at this point to be confirming them all. Maybe it's not fully 4000 (which would mean they're only counting a third of them) but it's likely close.
Under counting haha. What? Most states have ADMITTED to counting anyone who dies WITH covid as a covid death. The head of Illinois health department explained this in depth.
I will admit the record keeping with this has been inconsistent nationally. That said the fact not a single celebrity, politician, athlete or famous people having died from this is almost astonishing over 3 months into this. Not saying it's not real but considering it's supposedly a world wide pandemic you'd think there'd be all sorts of reports by now of noteworthy deaths across the country, especially with yet not one.
On March 30 the Spanish Princess Maria Teresa died of Covid. Boris Johnson the British Prime Minister was in ICU and nearly died from Covid...
But you also have to bear in mind that isolation for famous people is kind of different that for the rest of us. Hell many of them don't want to be around anyone they don't know...and they can afford to make that happen without really giving up much.
Don't bring up any data. People don't want to use or believe it if it doesn't support their narrative.
We are seeing that AGAIN right now with other key news items as the media can control mass amounts of people despite what the facts are.
For an institution with such a history of putting money before students, stupid move on their part.
Do you think any football is being played anywhere without these pledges?
Welcome to our new normal.
I'd assume they were signing waivers even before the China Flu. Football is an inherently dangerous sport.
I would make a joke about the state of ohio being one giant health concern, but Michigan isn't doing so hot.
Ohio is doing pretty well dealing with the virus. They have a good Governor
Not sure why you're being downvoted. They do seem to have a good governor and they're objectively doing really well with the virus (deaths and infections per capita far below most states).
Although the state legislature seems nuts and basically forced their lead health official (the one really responsible for their success) to resign. Maybe that's the reason for the downvotes? Because yeah, that seems like a mistake.
Although the state legislature seems nuts and basically forced their lead health official (the one really responsible for their success) to resign. Maybe that's the reason for the downvotes? Because yeah, that seems like a mistake.
As a resident of the devil's armpit, it was disheartening last week to hear about Dr. Amy Acton resigning (our lead health official) as she was one of the good guys. Her guidance on proactive shutdowns kept things from getting really bad in Ohio - we called off the Arnold classic in early March, which, for people who don't live in Columbus, is a HUGE money maker for the city and would've been an incredibly fertile breeding ground for virus transmission.
To say that I'm furious with my state's lunatic fringe would be an understatement. You had at least two state senators insinuate that Dr. Acton was a 'globalist', which is a doubly bad look when you know that she happens to be Jewish. (One of those senators' wife very charmingly said that Dr. Acton's policies were Nazi-lite) Our state congress passed a resolution to limit her powers, which Governor DeWine thankfully vetoed. Flu Klux Klan protesters even demonstrated in front of her house. All for the crime of trying to save lives. Essentially, some state lawmakers were mad that the worse case numbers she warned about didn't come to pass... and they didn't because of the actions she pushed for. She should be getting a statue instead of resigning.
The silver lining is that she's still a health adviser to the Gov. DeWine and will still be getting paid a generous salary. And that governor who listened to her is still the guy calling the shots, not our assgoon congress.
Also sad to see that Dr. Amy Acton resigned. Like you said, a good one.
Reminds me of one of the side plots from the movie Dazed & Confused.
Would love to see a high profile player like Justin Fields refuse to sign this. Pull a Randall 'Pink' Floyd if you will.
Roll it up and smoke it on the 50
I thought the school was supposed to look out for its students and athletes, not the other way around. Shameful act.
It does indeed seem crass, but if you were a staff attorney at Michigan or any school you’d be remiss not to council the administration to have some waiver drafted and then make workouts voluntary.
I just read the UM’s annual budget is over $1 billion. Very deep pockets and with an ultimate responsibility to educating students, means putting that capital at risk is negligent to the university’s mission.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this type of waiver becomes common practice and participation is made completely voluntary and a player can’t lose his scholarship if he chooses not to sign.
Wow, they had to sing the pledge and the waiver! Must have some good vocalists.
This is going to be the norm. I had to sign a waiver for my son to begin workouts with his travel baseball team, most baseball tournaments now require it. The bottom line is that athletes have to acknowledge that there is an inherent risk in participating in team sports.
I would wager that all schools will be doing this. Minus singing.
Does singing a pledge make it more (or less) binding? What if it was sung while taking a knee?
ask Boyz 2 men
This is actually smart
"student"- athletes
Fixed it for you.
If things go sideways, and they probably will, these waivers will ultimately be about as legally viable as Trump’s waivers in Tulsa. Which is to say: not at all.
the waivers signed to attend a rally would be stronger than the ones for athletes. The athletic ones are written by, for all intents and purposes, an employer. Them going “back to work” isn’t much of a choice.
Going to a rally? Strictly voluntary. You can reasonably be expected to assume the risk of being at a rally. If you get sick because you went, that’s on you.
The athletes? they are pretty much forced to risk it because their employers are demanding it. It’s not the same as assuming risk of bodily injury due to playing sports.
This virus has been in the number one story in the media for multiple months now. Nobody who gets sick at this point can claim ignorance anymore. The odds that anybody wins a lawsuit because they got sick after signing a waiver acknowledging these risks are vanishingly low.
Every school is going to have students sign assumption of risk or waivers to return to campus, sports or not. Take a look at U-M's housing contract addendum. It includes a hold harmless provision and risk assumption. It would be a gross derilect of duty for a university not to at least have students sign an acknowledgement/assumption of risk. The financial future of many universities is on the line with reopening.