Resources & Articles

Injuries happen in fitness settings. Someone tweaks a knee during a class, drops a weight, or overexerts on a hot day. Whether your business is actually liable when that happens depends on a mix of factors that go well beyond whether the client signed a waiver on day one, and a real Australian case that ran all the way to the Court of Appeal shows how these cases are actually decided. A client injury does not automatically mean a fitness business is liable. The circumstances,

“No refunds” is one of the most common lines in fitness membership and enrolment agreements, whether that’s a gym, a Pilates reformer studio, a yoga studio, or a personal training package, and in Western Australia, it’s also one of the most likely to be unenforceable in the way business owners expect. We covered the general version of this issue in Your Refund Policy Isn’t a Loophole: What the Law Actually Says. Fitness memberships have two extra layers of regulation on top:

Almost every gym, studio, and personal trainer in Western Australia has clients sign a waiver before their first session. Far fewer know that a waiver, on its own, is unlikely to give the protection most business owners assume it does, and a real Australian case shows exactly why. Why a Fitness Waiver Isn’t a Magic Shield Under the Australian Consumer Law, services generally come with a non-excludable guarantee that they’ll be provided with due care and skill. A business can’