With the hockey season well underway, there is an interest in the sport of hockey that continues to grow each year as well as ice skating as a recreation in general. With the growing demands for spaces to practice ice skating and with cities rising to meet the demands, officials have to accept the fact that there will likely be a rise in ice skating accidents as well as personal injury lawsuits against the city or the company that owns the rinks.
There are enough videos online of people falling while ice skating to prove that the recreation by itself is dangerous. Also, most companies have you sign waivers acknowledging this, thus excluding them from liability. While it’s usually not worth it for a law firm to open a claim against an ice skating rink, here are some cases that are where you’ll want to acquire a personal injury attorney. So who would be liable should an injury occur?
In most venues like a supermarket, the property owner is liable when an employee intentionally causes an injury while on duty. But in the case of a skating rink, you actually need to sue the individual employee and not the property owner or operator.
The property owner is liable when maintenance of the property isn’t regularly performed and the skater is injured as a result. Putting warning signs up in an area such as a portion of the rink that’s melted isn’t enough to defend the ice rink operator. Injuries caused by an employee’s negligence (unintentional) is another instance that the operator is liable.
In the many ways one can be caused to fall in a skating rink, being pushed by someone else is pretty high on the list. If it’s an experienced skater performing elaborate techniques against the general flow of the other skaters, this person is liable if he/she bumps into you or pushes you causing you to fall. A skater isn’t necessarily liable if the skater is inexperienced, loses their balance, then bumps into you, causing you to fall.
It’s once again assumed that ice skating is dangerous, but in the case of the experienced skater that clearly knows what he/she is doing, their decision to be inconsiderate of other skaters is the definition of negligence and thus can a claim be opened up against them by a personal injury attorney.
If you are in need of help after a personal injury accident contact ELP Lawyers.