Why should any parent be allowed to release from liability any adult for behavior that has yet to occur and causes injury to their minor child?

The Iowa Supreme Court’s opinion issued on November 5, 2010 in Taneia Galloway vs State of Iowa strikes down, at least in this case, a parent’s preinjury release of a minor child’s personal injury claim. Fighting on each side is two big guns, the Beattie Law Firm and the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. Justice Hecht writes for the Court.

The Iowa Supreme Court’s opinion issued on November 5, 2010 in Taneia Galloway vs State of Iowa strikes down, at least in this case, a parent’s preinjury release of a minor child’s personal injury claim. Fighting on each side is two big guns, the Beattie Law Firm and the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. Justice Hecht writes for the Court.

Galloway vs State of Iowa, No. 08-0776, November 5, 2010, Supreme Court Of Iowa.

Summary: A parent signed release forms waiving her minor child’s personal injury claims as a condition of the child’s participation in an educational field trip. This action was filed against the State after the child was injured during the trip. The district court granted the State’s motion for summary judgment, concluding the releases signed by the parent resulted in an enforceable waiver of the child’s personal injury claim. On appeal from the summary judgment ruling, we conclude the releases violate public policy and are therefore unenforceable.

This is an interesting decision that follows a national trend. We have a 14-year-old from Iowa attending a field trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The program is an outreach program organized by a state run college, the University of Northern Iowa and the State of Iowa. The child was injured when she was struck by a car trying to cross the street. Before the lawyers can get to the facts to discuss acts of negligence involving a lack of supervision, they first have to get by the release the parent signed.  Of course we’ve all signed those releases drafted by some defense minded lawyer sitting in the bowels of some big city defense firm. You know the kind of lawyer I’m talking about. He’s the guy that will rattle off a million ways parents are irresponsible and how they’ve not raised their kids properly. Yeah, yeah, yeah… we know they exist, but not every kid that gets hurt on these trips has a neither irresponsible parent nor are the parent’s responsible for how the trip is being run. Parents don’t supervise, teachers do; and teachers want parents to mind their own business so they can have fun on the trip with the other teachers. Heck if you don’t believe me just go to an afternoon Iowa Cubs game and watch the teachers. Need I say more?

And then there is the question of responsible parenting. How can signing off on a release be a responsible act before you even know the extent of injury or the causing factors? How smart is that Mr. Defense Attorney? I know I can hear you already singing the blues about the sky falling and how now every grade schooler will suffer because now no teacher wants to take the kids on field trip. Guess again Waldo, just go to the Iowa Cub sunny afternoon game and ask around to see if there are any teachers wanting to be back in the hot classroom. NOT!

Here you can read the decision on my website. I’ll post it so it’s there for eternity; or at least as long as that defense attorney is crying in his milk about how the world is ending as we know it. Let the kid of that release drafting defense attorney get hurt on a field trip and you can bet the attorney will be spending nights in the law library trying to pierce the veil he created so his kid can sue the school district and be awarded fair compensation for their injuries.

Follow this link on the Lombardi Law Firm website.

The Des Moines Register’s title is accurate but inflammatory in the sense that it sets up an emotional reaction. The title could have been: Why should the taxpayers pay lifelong medical benefits for seriously injured children when the schools don’t supervise?