$700,000 verdict gives chaperones pause. Indeed.

In my early twenties, I worked for a TRIO program, which took low-income, first-generation students (to consider college) on college trips.  I took many overnight visits with students around New Mexico and Colorado, arranging everything from bus transportation to chaperones to specialized college tours. In retrospect, it was a really tough job.

Part of the reason it was so tough was that I was essentially responsible for lots of other people’s children while on the trip, and liable for their safety. Now I thought about that, but not deeply enough. I didn’t have a homeowner’s insurance policy with personal liability insurance, and I don’t know if my employer did. My only insurance was that I stayed up for all night, sitting outside the kids’ dorm rooms reading the paper, mostly to make sure that they weren’t planning midnight excursions or drinking in their rooms. I would never take that sort of risk now, which doesn’t mean that it wasn’t an important job. Just that I would want some protection.

Many small non-profit groups do not have liability insurance and are great risk of being sued if something goes wrong, particularly on a school trip. In the case I opened with, a chaperone was sued for the death of one of the cheerleaders she accompanied to Hawaii to the tune of $700,000. The cheerleader was 18, and had been drinking within hours of arriving in Hawaii. This doesn’t particularly blame the cheerleader or the chaperone, but if you chaperone, consider asking about liability insurance from your organization or your homeowner’s policy in order to protect yourself.