Liability

A community member hosts a “free with donation” yoga class at our library, and attendees are encouraged to make a donation each class. These donations are collected by the yoga instructor who hands them to the circulation assistant and identifies it as a donation to the Friends of the Library organization.

This sounds like a lovely service to both the library and community, so I am going to make this answer as positive as possible.

First, it is clear from the question that the instructor (a “community member”) is not a library employee. So, they are either doing this as a volunteer or as an independent contractor.

A patron came in and asked me to “witness a signature.” He was signing some bank document, but it didn’t need to be notarized, just witnessed. I realized he wasn’t signing his name, and when I asked him about it, he said that it was his aunt’s name and he had a Power of Attorney - he showed me those documents, so I ended up signing as a witness. But I felt uncomfortable about it.

I have good news: the attorney you married really knows her stuff!

Of course, that means I also have bad news: the document you witnessed is probably invalid!

Is it required or advised that the Friends group (ours is a separate non-profit) have their own insurance? Monetary restrictions have resulted in our FOL group dropping their annual insurance as they understood it was not "required."

There is a large array of insurance coverage a not-for-profit organization might be required to have, and another, equally large array of coverage this is "optional" but may be advised as wise.

Most of the "required" coverages are due to having employees.

We are a small, rural, association library that serves a population of under 4,500. We recently received an Abuse or Molestation Exclusion from our general liability/property insurance company.

Before answering this question, I have to point to the extraordinary care the member has put into formulating it.

Prior to considering insurance coverage as a question of budget, this member library has:

We have a large facility. Sometimes patrons have to walk far to get to various programs and spaces. We have had a few patrons in the recent couple of months ask if we have a wheelchair or walker they could use to help them get around. We consulted with our insurance provider about this and he basically said to ask a lawyer.

This is such a beautiful idea! In my experience, there are three things that often impede beautiful ideas:

1. Insurance concerns;
2. Legal concerns; and
3. People who worry that there might be insurance or legal concerns.

This question shows how to protect an idea from these impediments:

Hello,

When I was a kid, I watched "Candid Camera"[1] from time to time (as it turns out, this was good training for TikTok).

Is there professional insurance for librarians? Given the book-banning lawsuits, do librarians and library workers need additional insurance to cover possible lawsuits? Other states have passed laws fining library workers $10,000. Besides the library's D and O insurance, do librarians and library workers need additional insurance coverage?

There are many types of insurance, and many types of "exclusions" to risks covered by insurance.

Because of this, there is no one answer to this question.  A library can have "general commercial liability" and "D&O", and "E&O", and "professional liability" coverage...and could still not have coverage for a claim related to library content.

We are revising our Meeting Room Policy. Currently we have a group of seniors who meet at our library for [really healthy] exercise in the morning before the library is open. They have been doing this for about [many] years.

There are three things that are potential obstacles to this request:

1.  Safety (and its flip side: Liability)

2.  Security (and its flip side: Loss)

3.  Charitable Status (and its obscure tax-concept flip side: "Inurements")

An academic librarian relayed this question from a researcher/author:

First, some validation: the faculty member is wise to be considering this issue, since publishing contracts[1] almost always put the responsibility and liability for photo clearances on the author.

My hometown library has implemented a fitness waiver for their movement and exercise activity programs. I am wondering if this is a good idea for my library. We provide some exercise classes including chair yoga, Zumba, nature walks, and are looking into another movement class activity.

I have a lot of fun-loving clients.  Here are some examples of activities I've created liability waivers for: