Congressional Republicans put their weight behind legislation Wednesday that would enable Little League coaches to draw up team rosters and volunteer paramedics to bandage wounds without fearing lawsuits resulting from their community activities.
The GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee opened hearings on the “Volunteer Protection Act,” which protects volunteers from most lawsuits, just days before the White House’s national volunteer summit this weekend.
The legislation has been proposed in every congressional session since 1986 by Rep. John Porter (R-Ill.) and, until this year, just as regularly ignored by Congress. The bill has never been reported out of committee, Porter said.
But with volunteerism a hot topic in political circles and the GOP having failed in attempts during the last Congress to win broader rollbacks in liability law, the volunteer protection bill has emerged as a Republican priority.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) made a rare personal appearance before the Judiciary Committee to open hearings with his own testimony.
“You shouldn’t have to go to somebody and have their first question be in a free society, `What is my liability risk?’ ” Gingrich said. “Our job in the Congress is to make volunteerism easier and more desirable.”
Witness Wednesday cited a celebrated 1982 lawsuit in which the parents of a 13-year-old Runnemede, N.J., Little League player sued his four coaches and the local Little League after the boy suffered permanent eye damage from a fly ball.
The defendants settled for $25,000 rather than try the suit, in which the parents charged the boy should have been given instructions on outfielding before a last-minute pregame switch to left field from his usual second-base position.
“A few highly publicized cases, such as this one, have forced individuals to weigh liability risks against their desire to serve . . . This fear of lawsuits has affected volunteer programs nationwide,” Porter said.
However, in testimony before the committee, American University law professor Andrew Popper argued that there was no clear evidence of a national problem and warned that the act might have unforeseen consequences.
“While one might think it perfectly safe to absolve of tort liability trained Red Cross volunteers . . . consider that this is a law that would have the same effect on college fraternities, where the record of due care is not exactly pristine,” Popper said.
Popper also noted that “numerous medical centers” rely on volunteers to provide health care and those volunteers generally would be immune from malpractice claims under the bill.
Porter’s Volunteer Protection Act would grant immunity from lawsuits to individual volunteers for all nonprofit organizations as long as the damage they caused was not from “wanton or willful conduct.”
People injured by the actions of a volunteer still would be able to sue to recover damages, because the law would leave nonprofit organizations themselves liable for those damages.
An American Red Cross representative said the bill thus would not lessen the mounting insurance costs for nonprofit groups.
The legislation does not affect Illinois, because the state has had a similar law since 1989 giving volunteers immunity from lawsuits.
