[SCA-AE] lawsuit and changes

[duane at velocity.net]

>
> And while background checks are good and useful, the gentleman in the
> lawsuit would have passed just fine.
>
> Liam
>
And there's the problem.  The SCA decided to institute a children's
program while ignoring what other organizations do to make their programs
comply with accepted standards (background checks being one of them).  The
attitude of either we know better or this would never happen because all
of our members would never do such a thing because we are a group founded
on Chivalry jumped up a bit them.

Failure to comply with accepted standards gets a lot of businesses in
trouble and the SCA learned this lesson the hard way with this particular
suit.

I am not saying that the suit wouldn't of happened, but showing you follow
accepted standards goes a long way in court to mitigating financial
awards.

Most the the armouring community learned this a long time ago.  Most of us
operate under LLC structures to shield our personal assets. We also follow
a set of accepted standards/specifications.  Those who don't  may get bit
in the future. (Product liability pays out pretty well these days) To my
knowledge, it hasn't happened yet, but it is just a matter of time when
some kind of catastrophic armour failure sends one of us to court.

Will the SCA learn from this? Well, one of the areas where the SCA has
done a good job of following accepted standards is in the equestrian
program.  The SEO in conjunction with the BoD and legal council made the
rules we play by in the equestrian program "line-up" with what goes on in
mundane horse shows in terms of determining qualifications of riders and
judges (marshals).  While the solution is not perfect, it will go a long
way to show we meet with accepted standards if a accident ever occurs in
the horse arena.

Take care,

Alexander