What Are My Legal Liability Needs? Our Facility Management Services Expert Explains
Taking preventative measures to avoid legal liability is a major role of facility management services, especially when you are outsourcing your facility management. For facility managers who are in charge of all operations, certain things can fall through the cracks, and one of those things is legal considerations. To avoid legal issues, whether they be from poor facility maintenance or injury, it is important to take the proper steps. In today’s blog post, SFM will look at legal liability and how your facility management services can put your complex in the right legal position.
What Is Liability And How Does It Affect My Facility?
In short, liability is being held responsible for something. This is a term that stretches across all legal matters, being used in everything from car crashes to criminal cases. For your sports facility, this term is used mostly in terms of injuries and the risk of injuries at your facility.
As far as how it affects your individual facility management services, it depends on what your facility does. If your complex is an athletic facility, your biggest potential liability will be for injuries caused due to lack of facility maintenance and care. For example, if your basketball goal has a partition without padding and a player injures themselves by running into that partition, you could be held responsible.
How Can I Avoid Being Held Liable?
There are two main ways that your facility management services team can avoid being held responsible for any injuries or mishaps that happen at your facility:
- Maintaining your facilities
- Having proper documentation
The first one is easy in most cases. For athletes that are injured at your facility, it is very unlikely that you will be held responsible if your facility wasn’t the cause of the injury because athletes are willingly partaking in an activity that can result in injuries. However, this can be trickier with public events.
While it’s good to have proper documentation for all aspects of your facility, it is especially important for riskier activities. For instance, if you have a rock climbing wall and someone gets hurt on that wall, you could be held responsible if the right paperwork is not filed. This paperwork typically includes a simple waiver filled out by the participating party, acknowledging that your facility isn’t liable for any injuries suffered as a result of the activity.
SFM Can Help Sort Out Liability With Our Facility Management Services
Determining and preventing legal liability for your facility can be complicated at times. What can you be held liable for? What activities require a waiver? Fortunately, our facility management services team at SFM specialize in these issues. For more information, contact SFM today at (727) 483-7910 or visit our website for details.
