Hi All,
Chelsea here from the Bike Cave in Duluth, MN. We're a pretty informal community bike shop that is open two days a week from April-October and we are 100% volunteer and donation operated. We use the basement and backyard of a Catholic Worker house. We recently received an email from someone who is interested in donating bikes that have been returned to their business but they are concerned about liability. This has sparked some conversation around the need for a release of liability that folks sign before they adopt a bike here. Because we are not formally incorporated we don't have any sort of coverage outside of homeowners insurance. I don't really even know who would be liable if there ever was an incident involving one of the bikes that we fixed up. Anyone have any experience or recommendations around this? Thanks in advance!
Peace, Chelsea for all of us at the Bike Cave
https://www.loavesandfishesduluth.com/bike-cave https://www.facebook.com/BikeCaveDuluth
At the Bicycle Co-Op of Williamsburg (Virginia), we post that all bikes and equipment sold or given away is "as is," (following the model of our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. We don't offer a warranty, but tell clients that, if anything goes wrong with a bike, we'll coach the client through the repair process. We used to say that we refurbish bicycles to be safe and reliable -- but since bicycling isn't safe, we simply say reliable now.
Andy
On Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 3:24 PM Bike Cave via TheThinkTank < thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org> wrote:
Hi All,
Chelsea here from the Bike Cave in Duluth, MN. We're a pretty informal community bike shop that is open two days a week from April-October and we are 100% volunteer and donation operated. We use the basement and backyard of a Catholic Worker house. We recently received an email from someone who is interested in donating bikes that have been returned to their business but they are concerned about liability. This has sparked some conversation around the need for a release of liability that folks sign before they adopt a bike here. Because we are not formally incorporated we don't have any sort of coverage outside of homeowners insurance. I don't really even know who would be liable if there ever was an incident involving one of the bikes that we fixed up. Anyone have any experience or recommendations around this? Thanks in advance!
Peace, Chelsea for all of us at the Bike Cave
https://www.loavesandfishesduluth.com/bike-cave https://www.facebook.com/BikeCaveDuluth _______________________________________________ TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...
Chelsea,
If anyone wanted to sue over a bike injury intersecting with a bike that came from your cave, they most likely would route the lawsuit toward the most recent entity with the deepest pockets that lies in the direction the bike came from.
This means that while you and your cohort aren't a legal entity, and subsequently aren't able to be sued as such, they might aggregate some number of you personally as defendants, or, more likely, they could name the Catholic organization that houses you as the defendant.
Something that has been discussed frequently in the CBS scene is the matter of liability (or insurance) waivers. It's been repeatedly suggested that they are unlikely to have real legal force in the situation of a determined litigant, but many continue to use them.
Some kind of waiver, as long as you make no assumptions about its legal weight, is probably a smart idea, if only in the interest of facilitating mindfulness and mutual understanding of the situation for volunteers and clients alike.
RIBs operated for thirty years, put out some pretty janky bikes at times despite our best intentions, and so far as I'm aware, was never sued once. We did have insurance coverage anyway. YMMV.
There are a lot of threads here on the ThinkTank, by the way, including one quite recently, about insurance providers that will accept community bike shops/programs. If you're exploring insurance at some point, you might dig around in there. Here is the page for searching the ThinkTank:
https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...
Our listserver should probably automatically tack the above link on to every reply-to-list post here, as a signature or something. Could be helpful to ppl.
~cyclista Nicholas
On 2023-10-30 13:39, Andy Ballentine via TheThinkTank wrote:
At the Bicycle Co-Op of Williamsburg (Virginia), we post that all bikes and equipment sold or given away is "as is," (following the model of our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. We don't offer a warranty, but tell clients that, if anything goes wrong with a bike, we'll coach the client through the repair process. We used to say that we refurbish bicycles to be safe and reliable -- but since bicycling isn't safe, we simply say reliable now.
Andy
On Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 3:24 PM Bike Cave via TheThinkTank < thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org> wrote:
Hi All,
Chelsea here from the Bike Cave in Duluth, MN. We're a pretty informal community bike shop that is open two days a week from April-October and we are 100% volunteer and donation operated. We use the basement and backyard of a Catholic Worker house. We recently received an email from someone who is interested in donating bikes that have been returned to their business but they are concerned about liability. This has sparked some conversation around the need for a release of liability that folks sign before they adopt a bike here. Because we are not formally incorporated we don't have any sort of coverage outside of homeowners insurance. I don't really even know who would be liable if there ever was an incident involving one of the bikes that we fixed up. Anyone have any experience or recommendations around this? Thanks in advance!
Peace, Chelsea for all of us at the Bike Cave
https://www.loavesandfishesduluth.com/bike-cave https://www.facebook.com/BikeCaveDuluth _______________________________________________ TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...
TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...
search term "insurance": 52 PAGES search term "waivers" 21 PAGES
wahahaha XD
On 2023-11-02 04:52, cyclista--- via TheThinkTank wrote:
Chelsea,
If anyone wanted to sue over a bike injury intersecting with a bike that came from your cave, they most likely would route the lawsuit toward the most recent entity with the deepest pockets that lies in the direction the bike came from.
This means that while you and your cohort aren't a legal entity, and subsequently aren't able to be sued as such, they might aggregate some number of you personally as defendants, or, more likely, they could name the Catholic organization that houses you as the defendant.
Something that has been discussed frequently in the CBS scene is the matter of liability (or insurance) waivers. It's been repeatedly suggested that they are unlikely to have real legal force in the situation of a determined litigant, but many continue to use them.
Some kind of waiver, as long as you make no assumptions about its legal weight, is probably a smart idea, if only in the interest of facilitating mindfulness and mutual understanding of the situation for volunteers and clients alike.
RIBs operated for thirty years, put out some pretty janky bikes at times despite our best intentions, and so far as I'm aware, was never sued once. We did have insurance coverage anyway. YMMV.
There are a lot of threads here on the ThinkTank, by the way, including one quite recently, about insurance providers that will accept community bike shops/programs. If you're exploring insurance at some point, you might dig around in there. Here is the page for searching the ThinkTank:
https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...
Our listserver should probably automatically tack the above link on to every reply-to-list post here, as a signature or something. Could be helpful to ppl.
~cyclista Nicholas
On 2023-10-30 13:39, Andy Ballentine via TheThinkTank wrote:
At the Bicycle Co-Op of Williamsburg (Virginia), we post that all bikes and equipment sold or given away is "as is," (following the model of our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. We don't offer a warranty, but tell clients that, if anything goes wrong with a bike, we'll coach the client through the repair process. We used to say that we refurbish bicycles to be safe and reliable -- but since bicycling isn't safe, we simply say reliable now.
Andy
On Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 3:24 PM Bike Cave via TheThinkTank < thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org> wrote:
Hi All,
Chelsea here from the Bike Cave in Duluth, MN. We're a pretty informal community bike shop that is open two days a week from April-October and we are 100% volunteer and donation operated. We use the basement and backyard of a Catholic Worker house. We recently received an email from someone who is interested in donating bikes that have been returned to their business but they are concerned about liability. This has sparked some conversation around the need for a release of liability that folks sign before they adopt a bike here. Because we are not formally incorporated we don't have any sort of coverage outside of homeowners insurance. I don't really even know who would be liable if there ever was an incident involving one of the bikes that we fixed up. Anyone have any experience or recommendations around this? Thanks in advance!
Peace, Chelsea for all of us at the Bike Cave
https://www.loavesandfishesduluth.com/bike-cave https://www.facebook.com/BikeCaveDuluth _______________________________________________ TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...
TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...
TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...
participants (3)
-
Andy Ballentine -
Bike Cave -
cyclista＠inventati.org