Free Louisiana Liability Waiver Form

Louisiana is the one state whose answer to the waiver question comes straight out of a code article rather than a line of cases. Article 2004 of the Civil Code was enacted in 1984 and says, in two short sentences, that a clause excluding liability in advance for intentional or gross fault is null, and that a clause excluding liability in advance for causing physical injury to the other party is null. A nullity in civilian vocabulary is not a clause that a court might decline to enforce on the facts. It is a clause with no legal existence. That single article decides the whole subject, and it explains why a Louisiana operator who copies a Texas or Florida waiver has bought a document that is partly decorative.

What follows is general information and not legal advice, and no page can replace a Louisiana lawyer reading your actual form. What this page tries to do is set out the rule accurately, explain what a Louisiana business can rely on instead, and show how to turn the downloadable Word template into a document that carries weight here. Sources are linked at the bottom of the page.

How Louisiana treats liability waivers

The leading case is Ramirez v. Fair Grounds Corp., decided by the Supreme Court of Louisiana in 1991. Henry Ramirez was a racehorse trainer with twenty-five years of experience. Four months before he fell twelve feet from an unrailed stall loft at the Fair Grounds, he had signed an application for stall space containing two paragraphs that are about as broad as drafting gets: the track and its officers would not be liable for any loss, damage, death or injury of any kind however caused, and the applicant would indemnify and hold the track harmless. The trial court and the court of appeal thought that ended the case. The Supreme Court reversed in a short opinion, quoted article 2004 in full, and said the clauses were null because they excluded in advance the track's liability for causing physical injury to Ramirez.

What makes Ramirez instructive is the argument the track lost. The Fair Grounds conceded that at face value the article nullified its clauses, but pointed to the official comments, which say the article does not change the law and does not govern indemnity or hold-harmless agreements. The court did not need to decide what the comments meant, because section 9 of Act 331 of 1984 provides that the headings and comments are not part of the law. A clear and unambiguous statute is applied as written. That reasoning has been quoted ever since in unrelated fields of Louisiana statutory interpretation.

Several things follow. There is no fair notice test here, no requirement that the release stand out, no distinction between a sophisticated and an unsophisticated signer, and no rescue for a release that names negligence expressly. A Louisiana release of future bodily injury fails for the same reason an unsigned contract fails: there is nothing there. The nullity also does not depend on the signer being a consumer. Ramirez was a professional in a commercial licensing arrangement.

The boundary of the rule is just as important. In Daigle v. Clemco Industries the Supreme Court read article 2004 together with the compromise articles and said the clear implication is that a clause limiting liability in advance is not null except where a party relinquishes future rights of action arising from physical injury or from the other party's intentional or gross fault. So the article leaves intact a great deal: limits on liability for property damage and economic loss, rental and equipment terms, indemnity arrangements that allocate the risk of claims by third persons between businesses, and compromises entered once a dispute actually exists. Louisiana kills the pre-injury personal-injury release specifically, not risk allocation generally.

Waivers signed for minors in Louisiana

In most states the hard question is whether a parent's signature can bind the child. Louisiana never reaches it, because article 2004 voids the release whoever signs. The child's claim is not waivable in advance by the parent for the same reason the adult participant cannot waive his own. A minor also cannot sign a binding release personally. Majority arrives at eighteen under article 29, and article 1918 excepts unemancipated minors from the general rule that all persons have capacity to contract, so a minor's contract is relatively null and can be rescinded at the request of the minor or his legal representative.

After an injury the position changes, and the procedure is specific. Compromise, the civilian word for settlement, is a contract by which parties settle a dispute through mutual concessions under article 3071, and it must be in writing or recited in open court under article 3072. Where the claimant is a minor, Code of Civil Procedure article 4265 allows the tutor, meaning the person vested with legal authority over the minor's person and affairs, to compromise the minor's action only with the approval of the court as provided in article 4271. Article 4271 in turn requires a petition setting out the subject matter and the tutor's recommendations and reasons, the written concurrence of the undertutor, whatever evidence the court demands, and a judgment of homologation approving the result. Article 3073 adds that a compromise transferring or renouncing rights must meet the capacity and form rules for that transfer.

The guardian section of a Louisiana form therefore earns its place for reasons other than release. It records consent to participate, the medical treatment authorisation, the family's acknowledgment of the specific hazards, the parent's agreement to the rules, and the contact and condition information a coach or guide needs. Keep it. Just do not let anyone in the business believe it closes off the child's claim.

What the waiver must say to hold up in Louisiana

Because the release clause has no effect, the drafting effort belongs somewhere else. Louisiana allocates fault. Article 2323 requires the percentage of fault of every person who caused or contributed to the injury to be determined, whether or not they are parties and whether or not they can pay. Acts 2025, No. 15 amended the article with effect from January 1, 2026 so that a claimant who is fifty-one percent or more at fault recovers nothing at all, and below that threshold recovery is reduced by the claimant's percentage. Very little case law interprets the amendment yet, but the direction is obvious: evidence about what the participant was told and what the participant then did is now worth more than it was.

Murray v. Ramada Inns is the case that put plaintiff conduct into that framework. Answering a certified question from the Fifth Circuit in 1988, the Supreme Court held that assumption of risk no longer has a place in Louisiana tort law, said the terminology is better banished from the scene, and directed that such conduct be adjudged under the comparative fault principles of article 2323. The court preserved two things. Express pre-accident agreements can still bar recovery where no public policy invalidates them, and it cited article 2004 in the same breath as the public policy that usually will. And cases of virtually unpreventable risk, the spectator struck by a foul ball, are resolved on the sounder ground that the defendant breached no duty at all.

So write the document as evidence. Describe the hazards of your particular site and activity in specific language rather than boilerplate: the water depth and the entry, the rock and the fall zone, the animal's temperament and the terrain, the machine's speed and what happens when a rider lets go. Ask for an initial or a checkbox against each disclosure rather than one signature at the end. Take an honest statement of the participant's experience, fitness, medication and injuries, because the equine statute makes matching the participant to the animal an express exception to immunity and because the same information decides whether you should have let this person start. Record the briefing, the rules, the refusals and the equipment checks. Keep incident reports. None of that is release language, and all of it is the material a Louisiana defence is actually built from.

The activity immunity statutes deserve equal attention, and they reward literal compliance. R.S. 9:2795.3 protects equine activity sponsors and professionals from liability for injury resulting from the inherent risks of equine activities, subject to exceptions for faulty tack the provider knew or should have known about, failure to make reasonable and prudent efforts to determine the participant's ability, a known dangerous latent condition of the land where warning signs were not conspicuously posted, willful or wanton disregard for safety, and intentional injury. Subsection E requires the prescribed warning on signs in black letters at least one inch high near any stable, corral or arena, and in clearly readable print in every written contract for services, instruction or rental. Subsection F sets the words. Subsection G provides that failure to comply with the notice requirements prevents the sponsor or professional from invoking the immunity. Parallel statutes cover farm animal activities at 9:2795.1, motorized off-road vehicle activities at 9:2795.4 and agritourism at 9:2795.5. Landowners who open ground for listed recreational purposes have the separate protection of R.S. 9:2795 and 9:2791, which does not extend to commercial recreational facilities for injuries on the facility itself. Amusement ride and inflatable device operators must register with the office of state fire marshal, carry insurance and post the rider notice required by R.S. 40:1485.7.

Gross negligence and what a Louisiana waiver cannot cover

The first paragraph of article 2004 nullifies any clause that in advance excludes or limits liability for intentional or gross fault causing damage to the other party. Note the difference between the two paragraphs. The physical injury paragraph is about the kind of harm; the gross fault paragraph is about the quality of the conduct and reaches damage of every kind, including purely commercial loss. Broom v. Leebron and Robinson Rent A Car, decided by the Second Circuit in 1993, shows the effect. A rental agreement disclaimed indirect, special and consequential damages. The court held that the clause could not support summary judgment, because it is contrary to public policy to allow a contracting party to absolve itself in advance for injuries caused by intentional or grossly negligent acts, and whether the company's refusal to replace stolen wheels and tires amounted to intentional or gross fault was a question for trial.

Article 2323 reinforces the point from the other side. Where an injured person's own negligence combines with the fault of an intentional tortfeasor, the claim for damages is not reduced at all. In short, a Louisiana business cannot buy its way out of the top of the fault scale by contract, and should not draft as though it can. Keep a severability clause so that a ruling on one paragraph does not take the rest of the document with it, and keep the limitation language you are entitled to, sized honestly to ordinary fault and to property.

Electronic signatures in Louisiana

Louisiana adopted the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act as chapter 1 of title 9 of the Revised Statutes, running from R.S. 9:2601 to 9:2621. Section 9:2607 is the operative provision: 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 legal effect solely because an electronic record was used in its formation, an electronic record satisfies a law requiring a writing, and an electronic signature satisfies a law requiring a signature. Section 9:2603 sets the scope and section 9:2605 limits the chapter to transactions between parties who have each agreed to conduct business electronically, which is determined from the context and surrounding circumstances, including the parties' conduct.

The act is about form and not about substance, which cuts both ways here. Moving your release online does not rescue it from article 2004. Moving your risk disclosures online improves them considerably, because the record shows which version of the hazards, rules and medical questions this participant was shown, at what time, from what device, and what they typed or ticked in response. In a system where the fight is over percentages of fault rather than over a release, that timestamped record is the most valuable thing the software produces. Preserve it well past the prescriptive period, and preserve the rendered version of the form as it appeared on screen, not just the field values.

How to use this form in Louisiana

Download the Word template and edit it as a risk acknowledgment, rules agreement and consent document rather than as a release. Work through every square-bracket placeholder and replace it: the legal name of your business, the activity, the address of the site, the emergency contact fields, and in the governing-law clause the State of Louisiana together with the parish where you operate, since Louisiana uses parishes rather than counties. Expand the acknowledgment-of-risk section until it describes your hazards in words a participant would recognise on your premises. Keep the medical authorisation, the rules and fitness statements, the photo and media consent if you use images, and the parent or guardian block. Keep the property, equipment and rental terms, which remain enforceable. If you run equine, farm animal, off-road vehicle or agritourism activities, paste the statutory warning notice into the contract word for word and put compliant signs up before you take another booking. Leave the release paragraph in if your attorney prefers, for property claims and for participants who travel from other states, but do not let it set anyone's expectations. Delete the note to the business at the end, then have a Louisiana attorney review the whole document.

To run it online, paste each section into a Waiver.com template as its own block, make each risk disclosure a separate acknowledgment rather than one lump of text, add the participant, guardian and medical fields, attach the statutory warning where a statute requires it, and publish a version so that every signature is tied to the exact wording in force that day. Then the record answers the question a Louisiana court will actually ask, which is not whether somebody signed a release, but who was told what, and how the fault should be divided.