Club liability

BigCon

Hi lads,

Just wondering about club liability in the following hypothetical situation:

A motorcycle club member has an accident on a club ride, but it transpires that the person was riding without insurance - would a club be liable in any way for his or third party claims?

I have read the charter and accept it's conditions...

focusing

In relation to third party claims, the way joint liability works is that if a court finds the club was 5% responsible because of their negligence and the member was 95% responsible because of his, payment of the award is divided between them 5:95, but if the member can’t pay his portion, the full amount is payable by the club.

In relation to liability to the member, having insurance or not makes no difference to liability from a theoretical point of view, but he’s more likely to sue if he’s out of pocket as a result of not having insurance.

The club owes a duty to its members to organise its events safely. If there was any negligence on the club’s part, then they’re liable for damages. If it was just an accident, and no-one’s fault, they’re not. But in practice, the courts usually find someone responsible for an accident, even if it was no-one’s fault.

Every club of every kind should have adequate insurance against claims by both members and third parties. From an ethical point of view they should also have insurance for injuries caused during club activities even if there isn’t a claim (i.e. there’s an accident, but no negligence, so no legal claim).

dermot_sheehan

Murphy v. Rock (No. 2) holds that a member of an unincorporated body or association can not sue the association itself for negligence. In this case the plainitiff who was the member of a local GAA club attended a disco at the club and paid an entrance fee. The court held he could sue for negligence since he paid the entrance fee and was like any member of the public but if he had been at a club event soley as a member of the club he couldn't sue the club. This is because if the club is unincorporated the club has no seperate legal personality and the club's legal personality is in effect the aggregate of its members, and the common law rule that you can't sue yourself kicks in.

Nothing stopping you suing individual members of the club however you allege that were negligent.

With regard to liability to third parties. I'm fairly sure vicarious liability (absolute liability of an employer for the negligence of an employee provided the employee was acting within the scope of his employment) would not apply since the member is not a servant of the club.

With regard to general tort law principles, it turns on whether "the club" through acts or omissions, by acting negligently (i.e. without the standard of care expected of a reasonable person) caused damage to another person to whom you owed a duty of care. The person actually injured would sue the motor insurance bureau of ireland, the question is whether the motor insurance bureau could then recover damages from the club for permitting someone to take part in their events without adequate insurance. Whether a duty of care exists would be a matter for the court at trial. The law used to be that you automatically owed a duty to anyone you could reasonably foresee being injured because of your actions (Ward v. McAllister), this however has been modified by the Supreme Court in Glencar Explorations v. Mayo Co. Co. to the standard that although reasonable foreseability is required to create a duty of care, it does not automatically create a duty of care.




With regard to criminal liability, s. 56 of the Road Traffic Act 1961 only penalises the driver or owner for a vehicle being driven without insurance.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZA24Y1961S56.html

focusing

The difference between the club being sued and the leader of that trip being sued personally is a bit academic.

A club is unlikely to leave the debt hanging over their captain.