Can Our Nonprofit Dance Group Be Sued?

[tillmouth]

If someone has an accident at our dance group, can the members be sued?
Someone is trying to sell us insurance but we're not sure that we need it,
Club funds are a few hundred pounds.
In Scotland.

[fiction-factory]

Are you referring to dance group sessions in a hall somewhere (in which case the hall may have cover that covers the group) or do you travel around doing shows.

[Buenchico]

If anyone (be that a private individual or a corporate body) is held to be negligent in respect of an occurrence which causes loss or injury to someone else then the person who has suffered can demand compensation from whoever has been negligent and, if necessary, seek a court order enforcing the payment of such compensation.

So the simple fact that someone has an accident while participating in the activities of your group (or watching them) doesn't mean that you could successfully be sued. That person would need to show that (based upon the balance of probabilities) their injuries (or damage to their property) had come about through negligence on the part of your group (or of one of its members, where the group could reasonably be held liable for the actions of that individual).

As an analogy, if someone slips on a liquid spilt on the floor of a supermarket (breaking a limb), the supermarket isn't automatically bound to pay them compensation. If the supermarket's CCTV showed that the spillage had only occurred (through the actions of another customer) only a few seconds before the accident, they couldn't be held to be negligent (as they'd not had reasonable time to get to know about the spillage, and to deal with it). However if the CCTV showed that the spillage had occurred half an hour before the accident, with several employees walking past it but failing to do anything about it, the supermarket could then be held to be negligent (forcing them to pay compensation).

So it's not 'accidents', per se, which you might need to be worried about. It's only claims for 'negligence' which can be pursued through the courts.

If your group does a lot of modern dance with, say, people jumping off structures on stage ass part of the performance, you might well need insurance (as there are inherent risks in such activities, such as with the person who built those structures failing to ensure that they couldn't move about as dancers leapt on and off them).

However if your group simply consists of 'mature' people meeting socially for ballroom dancing, the risks are clearly far lower and you could probably carry on without insurance.

[Peter Pedant]

the short answer is yes
for everything

your dance group is an unincorporated association
and so the members are liable
for the whole lot
( no limitation see ?)
I cant remember if each member is liable for the whole lot
( jointly and severally liable)

if you dance group is charging dancers then remember there is a contract side to this ....

and look there is a gobmint URL about it
https://www.gov.uk/unincorporated-associations

and here is a book which is a bit of a boring read
The Law of Unincorporated Associations and Similar Relations (Classic Reprint) Paperback – 5 May 2017
by Sydney R. Wrightington (Author)

I think this is the one I used in 1990
it was as they say all such a long time ago

Hi Chris !
BC's answer is a bit long
mine is shorter

[tillmouth]

Thankyou to you all that answered.
The hall is only insured for 'hall' things - wet floors and falling ceilings and the like.
Scary that we are all liable, but comforting that negligence has to be proved as we are, as suggested, mature and sedate.