By Prosper Shaked, Florida personal injury attorney. Published: October 27, 2026.

A liability waiver is a form a business asks you to sign before an activity: renting a boat or a jet ski, joining a gym, jumping at a trampoline park, running a race. By signing it you agree, in advance, not to hold the business responsible if you are hurt. Florida courts enforce these forms, but only as far as their words clearly reach, and some things no waiver can take away.

So the honest answer to “can I still sue?” is: it depends on what the form says, who it covers, and what actually caused the injury. When someone brings me a waiver after an injury, I read two things first: who the form releases, and whether its words describe what actually went wrong. Many of these cases turn on that second question. This guide explains how Florida courts read waivers, what they cannot excuse, the separate rules for children, and how the forms work at the places South Floridians and visitors sign them most. Waivers come up in many premises liability claims, and the same questions recur in most of them.

Quick answers

Can I still sue if I signed a waiver? Sometimes. A clear waiver usually bars a claim for the business’s ordinary negligence. It does not excuse the business’s own intentional harm, courts have refused to let one cancel a safety duty a statute places on the business, and it does not protect people and companies its terms do not cover.

Does a parent’s signature give up my child’s claim? Only in part. Under Florida law a parent can waive a child’s claim against a commercial activity provider only for the activity’s inherent risks, and only on a form carrying a notice the statute prescribes. Apart from a failure to warn of an inherent risk, which the statute counts as inherent, the parent’s signature does not release the business’s own negligence in running the activity.

Should I sign one? Often there is no other way in, and refusing means not taking part. Read it first, ask for a copy, and notice whether it covers the business’s own negligence, other companies, and your children.

Key terms

The six terms this guide uses

Release, or exculpatory clause. The part of the form in which you give up claims against the business before anything has happened.

Assumption of risk. A statement that you know the activity is dangerous and take on its risks. In a signed form it is a contract term; outside one, your own carelessness is usually weighed as comparative fault.

Hold harmless and indemnity. A promise to protect the business from claims, and sometimes to repay it. Read it closely: it is a promise about claims other people make, and it can be written to reach claims by your own family.

Inherent risk. A danger that is part of the activity itself and remains even when the business uses reasonable care. For children, the statute defines it, and it includes a failure to warn of an inherent risk and the risk that another participant acts carelessly.

Gross negligence. Conduct far worse than ordinary carelessness, so reckless that it shows a conscious disregard or indifference to the safety of the people exposed to it.

Natural guardian. A child’s parents are the child’s natural guardians under Florida law, with narrow exceptions, such as a parent whose rights have been terminated. Natural guardians have the limited power to waive a child’s claims described below.

What is in a typical Florida liability waiver?

Most forms combine the same few parts. Knowing them makes a long form easier to read.

Release of liability. The core promise: you will not sue the business, and usually its owners, employees and agents, for injuries connected with the activity. Look at who is listed and how the injuries are described. A release of claims “arising from the activity” reads differently from one that also mentions the business’s own negligence.

Assumption of risk. A list of the activity’s dangers, followed by your statement that you accept them. A race form might list falls, collisions with other runners and heat. This part matters most for injuries that come from the activity itself.

Acknowledgment. A closing statement that you read the form, understood it and signed it voluntarily. The business will point to it if you later say you did not understand the form.

Indemnity or hold harmless. Many forms add a promise to cover the business’s costs if someone else, a family member for example, makes a claim. It is easy to skim past, and it can matter when a child is hurt.

When does a Florida court enforce a waiver?

Florida courts do not favor waivers, because a waiver relieves a business of its duty to use reasonable care. They enforce one when its intent is clear and unequivocal: the words must be clear enough that an ordinary person would know what he or she was giving up.

Since Sanislo v. Give Kids the World (2015), the form does not have to use the word “negligence.” The Florida Supreme Court held that a release covering “any liability whatsoever” and physical injury “of any kind” could bar a negligence claim even without that word. The Court also said its ruling does not make general language automatically effective. Each form is read on its own words.

Three points follow from how the courts read these forms:

The form is read as a whole, and strictly against the business relying on it. If one sentence suggests the business will take reasonable care and another releases negligence, the form can be unclear. A Florida appeals court refused to enforce a gym’s waiver for that reason, and the same reasoning has been applied since Sanislo.
A waiver covers what it describes. A release written around one activity does not automatically reach a different kind of harm, and a form signed for one day may or may not cover later visits. The words decide.
The business must show the form applies. It raises the waiver as a defense, and it has to show that the form binds you and that its words reach your injury.

Assumption of risk after Blackburn

Without a signed form, walking into a known danger does not by itself end a claim in Florida. In Blackburn v. Dorta (1977), the Florida Supreme Court held that this “implied” assumption of risk is weighed as part of comparative fault: how much your own choices contributed to the injury. The Court left “express” assumption of risk, including a signed agreement not to sue, outside its ruling. That is why the signed form matters so much: without it, the question is usually comparative fault. Under § 768.81(6), Florida Statutes, a person found more than 50 percent at fault for his or her own injury recovers nothing, and a smaller share reduces the recovery.

What can a waiver not take away?

A waiver cannot excuse a business’s own intentional harm, and Florida courts have refused to let one cancel a safety duty a statute places on the business. Gross negligence is less certain: whether a waiver reaches it depends on its words, and at least one Florida appeals court has enforced a release that did.

The first two limits come from the cases. In Sanislo, the Florida Supreme Court noted that these clauses cannot release a party from an intentional tort. In Torres v. Offshore Professional Tour (1993), a Florida appeals court held that enforcing a release to excuse a boat-race promoter’s breach of a statutory safety duty would be contrary to public policy.

A waiver is also a contract, so two more limits follow from its own terms:

People and companies the form does not cover. The manufacturer of defective equipment, another customer, or a separate company running part of the activity is not released unless the form covers it. A waiver signed at the counter usually protects that business and its own people.
Injuries outside what it describes. If the words do not reach what happened, the waiver does not bar the claim.

A waiver also does not prove the claim for the business, or against it. You still have to show the business was negligent and that its negligence caused your injury. For a child’s claim, the statute’s presumptions, described in the next section, also shape that proof.

Can a parent sign away a child’s claim?

In Kirton v. Fields (2008), the Florida Supreme Court held that a parent’s pre-injury release could not be enforced against the child when the injury came from a commercial activity. Since 2010, § 744.301(3), Florida Statutes, has governed these waivers.

Under the statute, a parent may waive, in advance, a child’s claim against a commercial activity provider, but only for injury from an inherent risk of the activity. An inherent risk is a danger that is characteristic of the activity and remains even when the provider acts with reasonable care. The statute counts two things as inherent: a failure to warn of an inherent risk, and the risk that the child or another participant acts carelessly or intentionally. The provider and its own staff are not “another participant.”

What the statute says

What the statute says

To be enforceable, the waiver must include a prescribed notice, in uppercase type at least 5 points larger than the rest of the form and clearly distinguishable from it. The notice opens with the heading “NOTICE TO THE MINOR CHILD’S NATURAL GUARDIAN” and the line “READ THIS FORM COMPLETELY AND CAREFULLY.” It tells the parent that, even if the business uses reasonable care, the child may be seriously injured or killed by dangers inherent in the activity, and that the parent is giving up the child’s right and the parent’s own right to recover for those inherent risks.

If the form contains the notice and waives no more than the statute allows, the law presumes the waiver is valid and that the injury came from an inherent risk. To overcome the first presumption, the family must show that the form more likely than not fails to comply, the ordinary civil standard. To overcome the second, it must meet a higher standard, clear and convincing evidence, that what caused the injury was not an inherent risk.

§ 744.301(3), Florida Statutes

What this means for you: look for the notice. If it is missing, too small or worded differently, the form may not bind your child’s claim. If it is there, check that the form waives no more than the statute allows, and then what caused the injury.

At a trampoline park, for example, a collision caused by another jumper can be the kind of risk the statute treats as inherent. A broken spring the park never replaced, a torn mat, or a court the park let become too crowded to be safe points to the business’s own conduct, which may fall outside what a parent can waive in advance, depending on the facts and the statute’s presumptions.

For noncommercial activities, such as a school team or a volunteer league, the statute leaves the question to the common law, and Kirton did not decide it.

Where South Florida residents and visitors sign waivers, and how each works

Many of the same questions come up everywhere, but the rules and the paperwork differ by activity.

Boat and jet ski rentals

A business that advertises and rents boats or personal watercraft without providing a licensed captain is generally a “livery” under § 327.54, Florida Statutes, and the statute gives it duties of its own. It may not knowingly rent a vessel that is unseaworthy or carry more people than the vessel’s capacity plate allows. It must give pre-rental instruction on how the vessel handles, safe operation, the local waterway and emergencies; each person instructed gives the livery a written statement attesting to it, signed by the instructor. It must have a written rental agreement and keep it for a year, and it may not knowingly rent anything but a human-powered vessel to someone under 18. It must carry insurance of at least $500,000 per person and $1 million per event, give the renter the insurer’s name and address and the policy number, and either insure the renter or offer the renter coverage to buy.

A rental waiver sits on top of those duties. Torres did not decide whether a rental waiver can excuse a breach of one of them, but it is where that argument starts: a release cannot immunize a breach of a statutory duty meant to protect the person who signed it. If you were hurt on a rental, our pages on boat accidents and jet ski accidents explain how those claims are investigated.

Cruise tickets

A cruise ticket is a contract, but federal law limits what it can do. Under 46 U.S.C. § 30527, a ship carrying passengers between U.S. ports, or between a U.S. port and a foreign port, may not include in its ticket a provision limiting its liability for personal injury or death caused by the negligence of the owner or its employees or agents, and any such provision is void. Cruise tickets also contain terms on when you must give notice, how long you have to sue and where a case must be filed; whether those terms apply is a separate question. Our cruise ship injuries page explains them.

Gyms and fitness classes

Gym waivers usually sit inside the membership agreement. Florida appeals courts have enforced gym waivers that named the gym’s own negligence plainly, and refused to enforce one that also suggested the gym would take every reasonable precaution. In one gym claim that came to my office, the claims administrator gave two reasons for denying it: its investigation found nothing wrong with the treadmill, and the member had signed a waiver with the membership. Those are two separate questions, and each needs its own proof: the equipment’s inspection and service records for the first, the signed contract itself for the second. More on these claims: can you sue if you are injured at a gym in Florida?

Amusement and activity parks

Parks with rides, zip lines, climbing walls and go-karts often require a waiver, sometimes by tablet at the entrance. The questions are the same: who the form covers, whether it covers the park’s own negligence, and, for children, whether it carries the statutory notice. Our page on amusement park accidents covers ride and maintenance claims.

Trampoline parks

Trampoline parks typically require a waiver, and many jumpers are children, so § 744.301(3) often decides what the parent’s signature covers. See the example in the section on children, and our page on trampoline park accidents.

Races

Race releases tend to be broadly written, and Florida appeals courts have enforced them, in one case against conduct the organizers conceded could be gross negligence. Read them closely. A statutory safety duty of the kind in Torres is one possible limit.

Should you sign a waiver?

Often the choice is to sign or not take part. If you sign, do it knowingly:

Read who it releases. One company, or “affiliates, contractors and sponsors”?
Read what it releases. The activity’s risks, or the business’s own negligence too?
Read what it says about children. If you are signing for a child, look for the statutory notice in large capital letters.
Ask for a copy, or photograph it. For kiosk and online forms, keep the confirmation email.
Look at the place. Worn equipment, missing staff and overcrowding are reasons to think twice, whatever the form says.

Steps after you signed a waiver and got hurt

Get medical care first and follow your doctors’ plan. The medical record is the evidence of your injury.
Get a copy of what you signed. Kiosk, tablet and app waivers often create a timestamped record the business keeps; ask for it in writing.
Photograph the scene and the equipment before it is repaired or replaced, and keep anything you were wearing or using.
Ask for the incident report and write down the names of staff and witnesses.
Do not sign anything else. A release offered after an injury, often with a small payment, is a different document from the waiver: it settles a claim that already exists.
Note the deadline. Most Florida negligence claims must be filed within two years. A cruise ticket may set its own, shorter deadlines.

Documents you will see

The five documents and what to check on each

Document	What it is	What to check
Release and assumption-of-risk paragraphs	The heart of the waiver: what you give up, and the risks you accept.	Who is released, and whether the business’s own negligence is described clearly or only the activity’s risks.
Indemnity or hold-harmless paragraph	A promise to protect or repay the business if someone else makes a claim.	Whether it reaches claims by your family, including your children.
Parent or guardian section	The part signed on a child’s behalf.	The § 744.301(3) notice in uppercase type at least 5 points larger, and the activity named.
Signature page or electronic record	Your signature, or the kiosk or app record with date and time.	That it is your signature, for this visit, and what version of the form you saw.
Boat or jet ski rental agreement and instruction statement	The written agreement and the signed statement that § 327.54 requires.	Date of birth, number aboard, return time, the instruction topics, and the insurer’s name and policy number.

The form above is a generic illustration, not any business’s actual waiver.

Frequently asked questions

I signed on a tablet or online. Does that count?

Do not assume it does not. Ask the business for the record of what you signed and when, and keep any confirmation email. How it was signed can be its own question, along with what the form says.

I signed a waiver last year. Does it cover today’s visit?

It depends on the words. Some forms cover a single visit, others every visit or a whole membership period.

I did not read it before I signed.

Do not assume that makes it ineffective. What the words cover, who signed it, and the limits described above still need review.

A different company caused my injury.

A waiver releases only the people and companies its terms cover, by name or by a clear description such as “employees and agents.” A manufacturer, contractor or other customer it does not cover is not released by it.

My child was hurt at a birthday party, and another parent signed the form.

The statute lets a child’s natural guardian, a parent, sign this kind of waiver. A form signed by someone else raises a separate question about whether it binds your child at all.

How long do I have to file a claim?

Most Florida negligence claims must be filed within two years, under § 95.11(5)(a), Florida Statutes. A cruise ticket may set its own, shorter deadlines; see our cruise ship injuries page.

Can You Still Sue if You Signed a Liability Waiver in Florida?