Free Alaska Liability Waiver Form

Alaska makes guided trips, rafting, climbing, mushing and flightseeing a normal part of doing business, and the law has grown up around that. The Legislature wrote an assumption of risk statute for sports and recreation, it wrote a separate statute telling parents exactly when they may sign away a child's negligence claim, and the Supreme Court has decided four cases that tell you what wording survives. Together they make Alaska one of the more predictable states to draft a waiver for.

Everything below is drawn from Alaska statutes and Alaska Supreme Court decisions, all of which are linked at the foot of the page. It is background information for operators and organisers and is not legal advice; an attorney licensed in Alaska should look at your finished form before you hand it to a customer.

How Alaska treats liability waivers

Alaska has never held that pre-activity releases are void on their face. What it has done is set a bar for them that the court in Ledgends, Inc. v. Kerr described as a very high standard of clarity. The line of authority starts with Kissick v. Schmierer, a 1991 case about a fatal plane crash in which three passengers had signed a covenant not to sue before boarding. The court refused to let the covenant defeat the wrongful death claims, because it never used the word death, leaving the word injury ambiguous, and ambiguities in a pre-recreational exculpatory clause get resolved against the party seeking exculpation. Kissick also laid down the core requirement Alaska still applies: the intent to release a party from liability for future negligence must be conspicuously and unequivocally expressed.

Moore v. Hartley Motors added the public policy piece. A woman hurt on an all terrain vehicle training course argued that her release lacked consideration and should be void as unconscionable. The court disagreed on both counts. Consideration was the chance to take the class itself, not the fifty dollar rebate that had tempted her into it. On public policy, the court ran the Tunkl factors borrowed through an earlier Anchorage case and found that an ATV safety class is not an essential service and the providers held no decisive advantage in bargaining strength, so the release stood. Moore still lost her case on the release, though, because the document described only the unavoidable and inherent risks of riding and never mentioned negligence, which limited its reach to those inherent risks.

Kerr and Donahue v. Ledgends both involved the Alaska Rock Gym in Anchorage. In Kerr the release fell apart because it promised that the gym kept its facilities safe and its equipment in good condition while simultaneously disclaiming liability for failures of exactly that kind. In Donahue, decided in 2014, the gym's rewritten form was enforced against a climber who broke her tibia in four places after dropping a few feet from a bouldering wall on an instructor's advice. The practical upshot for an Alaska operator is that the courts are willing to enforce your form, and the Legislature said as much in AS 09.65.290(d), but only if the document says the uncomfortable thing out loud.

Waivers signed for minors in Alaska

This is where Alaska parts company with most of the country. AS 09.65.292(a) provides that, except as provided in subsection (b), a parent may, on behalf of the parent's child, release or waive the child's prospective claim for negligence against the provider of a sports or recreational activity in which the child participates, to the extent that the activities to which the waiver applies are clearly and conspicuously set out in the written waiver and to the extent the waiver is otherwise valid. The section then adds that the release or waiver must be in writing and shall be signed by the child's parent. Most states leave this to judges and end up with conflicting decisions; Alaska families and Alaska businesses get an answer from the statute book.

The permission is bounded on four sides. Subsection (b) says a parent may not release or waive a child's prospective claim against a provider for reckless or intentional misconduct, which draws the ceiling at ordinary negligence. Subsection (c)(1) limits the section to a child, meaning a minor who is not emancipated. Subsection (c)(2) then defines parent generously, reaching a natural or adoptive parent, a guardian or other court appointed representative, a representative of the Department of Family and Community Services for a child in state custody, a person with a valid power of attorney concerning the child, and, for a child not living with a natural or adoptive parent, a grandparent, aunt, uncle or adult sibling the child lives with. Finally, subsections (c)(3) and (c)(4) import the meanings of provider and sports or recreational activity from AS 09.65.290, which pins the statute to the activity list in that section and shuts out skiing or sliding at a ski area, boxing and wrestling contests, and rides on devices regulated under AS 05.20.

None of that helps once a child has actually been hurt. At that stage Alaska Civil Rule 90.2 takes over: a parent or guardian has power to execute a full release, a covenant not to sue, or a stipulation for entry of judgment on a minor's claim, but the document is not effective until the court approves it on a petition or motion that sets out the child's date of birth, the circumstances of the claim, the available liability insurance and why the deal is fair. The court can decide without a hearing when the proceeds after fees and costs do not exceed twenty five thousand dollars. Keep in mind too that the clock runs long for children, because AS 09.10.140 excludes the years of minority from the two year limitation period, subject to its own caps.

What the waiver must say to hold up in Alaska

Donahue gathered the requirements from Kissick, Moore and Kerr into a list of six characteristics of an effective release, and the Supreme Court endorsed the formulation. First, the risk being waived must be specifically and clearly set out, using examples such as death, bodily injury and property damage. Second, a waiver of negligence must be specifically set out using the word negligence. Third, those factors must be brought home to the person signing in clear, emphasized language, using simple words and capital letters. Fourth, the release must not violate public policy. Fifth, if the release reaches acts of negligence unrelated to inherent risks, it must suggest an intent to do that. Sixth, the agreement must not represent or insinuate standards of safety or maintenance.

Each item came out of a real failure. The negligence wording is the Kissick and Moore lesson: in Moore the form spoke only of unavoidable and inherent risks, so the court read it as releasing nothing more. The safety and maintenance item is the Kerr lesson, where the gym's own reassurances contradicted its disclaimer and the ambiguity was construed against the drafter. The fifth item comes from Moore's hidden rock in tall grass, a hazard the court thought might be an unnecessary danger rather than an inherent risk of riding.

The Donahue form shows how far emphasis has to go. Its releasing clause sat in the middle of a dense first page in small type, which the climber argued made it meaningless. The court disagreed because the clause was a single sentence standing alone as its own numbered paragraph, the risks of climbing were spelled out in ordinary descriptive language, several sentences warned that instructors are not infallible and may give inadequate warnings or instructions, a bold line told the reader they were ultimately responsible for their own safety, and bold capitals directly above the signature line confirmed the reader had read and understood the document and agreed to be bound. Alaska reads the release as a whole, so that combination mattered more than any single design choice.

Gross negligence and what an Alaska waiver cannot cover

Start with the statutory limits, because they are the firm ones. AS 09.65.292(b) forbids a parent from waiving a child's prospective claim for reckless or intentional misconduct, so on the minor side of your form the ceiling is written into law. AS 09.65.290(c)(1) then says the inherent risk defence does not apply at all to a civil action based on a provider's negligence where that negligence proximately caused the injury, death or damage, and (c)(2) carves out claims about the design or manufacture of equipment. Those subsections are the reason an Alaska waiver has to carry its own negligence language rather than leaning on the assumption of risk statute.

For an adult signing on their own behalf, the honest answer is that Alaska has not resolved it. Donahue noted in a footnote that recreational releases survive public policy review in other states partly because gyms and operators remain liable for gross negligence or recklessness, and it quoted a California survey concluding that the vast majority of decisions void agreements that try to release aggravated misconduct. But the climber in Donahue never pleaded gross negligence, so the Alaska Supreme Court had no occasion to rule and did not. Until it does, assume that a claim framed as recklessness or gross negligence will get past your release and will be fought on the facts.

There are also places where Alaska simply refuses the waiver. AS 05.45.120(a) says a ski area operator may not require a skier to sign a release in exchange for the right to ride a tramway and ski in the ski area, and a release that violates the subsection is void and may not be enforced. Subsection (b) preserves releases for special events, coaching, helping, spectating and rental programs, and for third party forms required as a condition of running a rental or event. Separately, AS 05.45.020(a) makes a ski area operator who violates the chapter, its approved plan of operation or the tramway regulations negligent and civilly liable. Add in the risk that your own advertising becomes evidence, which Donahue considered before deciding the gym's slogans did not override the release.

Electronic signatures in Alaska

Alaska adopted the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act and codified it at AS 09.80. Section 09.80.040 does the heavy lifting. A record or signature may not be denied legal effect or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form, a contract may not be denied effect solely because an electronic record was used in its formation, an electronic record satisfies a law requiring a record to be in writing, and an electronic signature satisfies a law requiring a signature. That covers the writing and signature conditions AS 09.65.292 attaches to a parental waiver.

Two more sections shape how you should run the process. AS 09.80.020(b) applies the chapter only between parties who have each agreed to conduct transactions by electronic means, and whether they agreed is determined from the context and surrounding circumstances, including the parties' conduct. A booking flow where the customer chooses to sign on their phone supplies that context, and an explicit consent checkbox makes it easier to prove later. AS 09.80.060(a) attributes an electronic record or signature to a person if it was the act of that person, which may be shown in any manner, including evidence of the efficacy of whatever security procedure you used to identify the signer.

The provision Alaska operators most often miss is AS 09.80.050(c): if a sender inhibits the recipient's ability to store or print an electronic record, the record is not enforceable against that recipient. Emailing a copy of the signed waiver, or offering a download link that actually works, is therefore not a courtesy but a condition of enforceability. Section 09.80.010 also sets the chapter's outer limits, excluding wills, codicils and testamentary trusts and most of the Uniform Commercial Code, none of which touches a recreation waiver.

How to use this form in Alaska

Download the Word version at the top of this page and edit it for your operation. Put your legal business name in, extend the released group to your owners, employees, instructors, guides and contractors the way the Rock Gym form did, and replace the generic risk list with the hazards your customers actually meet, whether that is cold water, bear country, a loading ramp or a bouldering mat. Keep the word negligence in the releasing sentence, give that sentence its own short numbered paragraph, and put a bold line in capitals above the signature confirming the signer has read and understood what they are signing. Then delete anything that reads as a safety promise, because Kerr shows how quickly that unravels the rest.

If minors take part, use the guardian block and make it track AS 09.65.292. Name the activities the waiver applies to rather than gesturing at recreation in general, since the statute conditions the parent's power on those activities being clearly and conspicuously set out. Check whether your activity is inside the AS 09.65.290 list at all before you rely on the parental waiver, and never tell a family the form covers reckless conduct.

Signing online through Waiver.com covers the AS 09.80 points for you. The signer agrees to transact electronically before they sign, the completed waiver is emailed and stays available to download, which is what AS 09.80.050(c) requires, and each record keeps the timestamp, device and address details that make an attribution argument under AS 09.80.060 straightforward. Store the records for at least two years for adults under AS 09.10.070, and much longer for children, whose claims can remain live years past the activity under AS 09.10.140. Have an Alaska lawyer read the final version before it goes live.