Rules, clubs, lawyers, and insurance help please

[Don Sims]

Originally posted by I2DDD
Hey where did JR's post go?

Members need to treat each other with respect here is why I edited JR's post but did not delete it.

12DDD if you read rsallen13's post the they he's referring to is the AMA.

Back to the discussion!!
Don

[ctdahle]

The answer to your question in the first post is:

It Depends.

It is difficult, and rightly so, to hold someone liable for failing to govern the conduct of another person.

However, consider the following hypothetical:

Imagine a flying field that borders on a major highway.

Then imagine that a particular flyer gets his jollies by buzzing cars.

Further imagine that the flyer is a club officer or for some other reason the club leadership ignores the conduct and allows the flyer to continue to buzz cars.

Imagine then that a motorist and her three kids are killed when she is frightened by the model plane dive bombing her, dodges, loses control and veers into an oncoming semi.

Almost certainly the club and it's officers will be named in the subsequent lawsuit, along with the flyer, and anyone else connected with the incident. I would suggest that evidence that the club had discussed the conduct, proposed, and adopted a rule designed to prevent the conduct, and was taking disciplinary action against the flyer would do a lot to reduce the club and its officer's liability.

Clubs probably have a duty to adopt, and enforce rules that are necessary for the safety of the non-flying or non-member public. Rules regarding or limiting overflight of areas behind the flightline, over the pits and spectator and parking areas, or beyond the limits of an identified safe overflight area fall within this catagory.

Clubs should only adopt rules that are reasonably necessary to protect safety, and they must be prepared to uniformly enforce any rule they adopt. In discussing a rule, the question should be "are we prepared to throw someone out of our club or obtain a restraining order if they fail to obey this rule?"

As for the other scenarios you raise, the general plan should be to design and maintain a flying field that minimizes danger without lots of rules.

For example a "four planes in the air only" rule might be wise on a small field where the flightline crowds the runway or wind and weather conditions make it necessary for pilots to be extra aware of traffic, but the need for the rule could be avoided if the field was designed with adequate spacing between designated pilot's stations and a proper buffer zone between the pilot's line and the runway.

It is always better to have a physical set up that reduces the need for safety rules than to have lots of rules that are hard to remember, or are difficult to follow.

[I2DDD]

ctdahle

WOW!!! Exactly!!! And well said. Finally someone sees it just the way it is! You MUST be lawyer or work closely in the profession. Your post is right on the money. Finally……...

I had given up and figured I was all alone. I have posed this query in two forums and have been labeled a troll or some type of renegade for the most part. Only a few respondents even seem to grasp the question at hand much less give a real insight into rules as they relate to clubs.