Risk Manager

The University of Northern Iowa has proclaimed that playgrounds are being sued on the basis of one every 2 1/2 minutes in the United States, this in itself is an amazing statistic.

In New York State for example the ASTM (American Society of Testing and Materials) and the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, have issued both standards and guidelines. If any of these guidelines and standards are violated, it is also at this point a codified violation of New York State law, and the defendant is automatically guilty.

We as Kiwanians on numerous occasions build playgrounds for community groups, or sometimes we just give the money for it to built, and take pride in the sign that says: this was contributed by XXY Kiwanis club of so and so. This is all fine, but it does lead to some legal complications. As the New York State Risk Manager for this district, it is my recommendation that when building or donating the money or the labor for these playgrounds, it is of utmost importance that you receive a hold harmless agreement from either the school district or the municipality, holding harmless your club, and/or individuals within the club from being sued for some defect, or some accident that occurs on this particular playground.

As I previously mentioned, losses are very common in this particular situation, and I strongly advise that any club undertaking this type of activity, and I know numerous clubs have done so all with good faith, that they receive a hold harmless agreement from the municipality, school district, or community organization for which they have either contributed money, or have built and put together the playground itself.

Playgrounds for community areas are a wonderful thing and children get an awful lot of happiness by using them. The most critical area that happens in these playgrounds relates to the playground surface, under and around the playground equipment. It is this writer's opinion based on numerous years in the litigation field of playgrounds that I advise any club that is going to do this that they have a minimum of a 9 inches of playground surface under and around the equipment itself; this could be wood chips, or pea gravel, or could be sand, or poured rubber. I suggest any club that's looking to do this kind of work contact me as soon as possible so that I can advise you that you are on the right side of the law.

We as Kiwanians do wonderful things, and this is a typical example of what we would do at Kiwanis all in good faith for the community. So please contact me so that I may advise you on how to go about protecting your club and your assets.

Column Posted on Web Site January 27, 2011