holding that "{Indemnification agreements executed by a parent or guardian in favor of tortfeasors, actual or potential, committing torts against an infant or incompetent, are invalid as they place the interests of the child or incompetent against those of the parent or guardian"
How later courts described this case
- holding that "{Indemnification agreements executed by a parent or guardian in favor of tortfeasors, actual or potential, committing torts against an infant or incompetent, are invalid as they place the interests of the child or incompetent against those of the parent or guardian"
- explaining that Tennessee’s law against this type of waiver reinforces the policy of “affording protection in the law to the rights of those who are unable effectively to protect those rights themselves”
- holding that mother had no authority to release, exculpate or indemnify local government and board of education against liability, on behalf of her twenty-year-old severely retarded son
- extending the law that a parent could not execute a pre-injury release on behalf of a minor child to a mentally handicapped twenty-year-old student who was injured while training for the Special Olympics at a YMCA swimming pool
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
TOMLIN, Presiding Judge (Western Section),
concurring.
I readily concur in the excellent opinion written by my colleague. In addition, I would hold that even if the law in this state was to the effect that Mrs. Childress could execute a valid release as to the rights of her son, the release, as executed, as I interpret it, attempts to release only the mother’s rights and not those of her son. For instance, the first sentence, acknowledging that young Childress was using the facilities at his own risk, begins with the language: “I, the undersigned, individually and on behalf of the above-named en-trant_” [emphasis added] However, the language purporting to release the Special Olympics and others reads as follows: “I, on my own behalf, hereby, release, discharge and indemnify_” [emphasis added] It is obvious that the language last used purports only to release the rights of the “undersigned,” i.e., Mrs. Childress, and not those of her handicapped son.