Delaware Supreme Court: an outside group's liability waiver does not shield the association
Delaware Supreme Court: an outside group's liability waiver does not shield the association
2026-08-02 · Delaware · Courts
Delaware associations lend out parking lots, clubhouses and grounds to outside groups constantly, and often assume the group's own liability waiver covers them too. The Delaware Supreme Court has held it does not — at least not on the pleadings.
Ryan v. Sea Colony Recreational Association, Inc., No. 493, 2024, was decided July 28, 2025, Justice Abigail M. LeGrow writing for a panel with Justices Valihura and Griffiths. Judgment on the pleadings was reversed and remanded.1
It is the only published Delaware Supreme Court opinion in the current window with a community association as a party.
What happened
A participant in a charity event in Bethany Beach signed the organiser's liability waiver. The waiver covered the organiser and “its directors, officers, employees, volunteers and other agents.”
She was directed to park in a lot owned by the Sea Colony Recreational Association, and was injured in an adjacent grassy area.
The Superior Court granted the association judgment on the pleadings, holding it was the organiser's agent and therefore covered by the waiver she had signed.
Why that was error
Three reasons, and each is portable.
Agency is normally a question of fact. It is not something a court decides from the face of a complaint absent facts that compel it.
A contract or licence between two parties does not by itself create agency. The pleadings equally supported the inference that the association had simply licensed its lot to the event — permitting a use, not acting on the organiser's behalf.
The burden was the association's. The waiver was an affirmative defence, and the association bore the burden of proving it. At the pleading stage the court must draw all reasonable inferences for the plaintiff, which is the opposite of what happened.
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