Parents at UC-Berkeley Easter Egg Hunt Must Sign Waivers Due to Risk of ‘Catastrophic Injuries and Death’

Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the paper trail: Hard-boiled lawyers made sure no kids could participate in the University of California-Berkeley’s campus Easter egg hunt on Sunday without their parents first signing a waiver.

Before the tykes were ushered toward the roped-off grass, parents stood in line for up to half an hour to hand in the official form for 25th Annual Easter Egg Hunt and Learning Festival. (God forbid the kids just have fun.) According to the waiver, which was obtained by Reason, the undersigned agreed that “Participation in The Activity carries with it certain risks that cannot be eliminated regardless of the care taken to avoid injuries.” These risks ranged from “1) minor injuries, such as scratches, bruises and sprains 2) major injuries such as eye injury or loss of sight, joint or back injuries, heart attacks, and concussions to 3) catastrophic injuries including paralysis and death.”

Are they hunting Easter eggs or landmines?

“Goodness gracious,” said Robert Strand, executive director and lecturer at the Center for Responsible Business at the UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business, in an interview with Reason. Strand was at the event with his wife and kids, age 5 and 2, and was quite underwhelmed by it. “One you signed, you got the tickets and then you walk over to these three different roped-off areas for kids of different ages and literally it was a flat grass surface where they would just place the eggs.”

Each kid was allowed to pick up five, said Strand, “which was completed within a minute, because they were just placed there.”

On the one hand, he said, “I’m glad they put this event on.” It brought a lot of families to the campus, which made for a lovely afternoon. But the emphasis on the potential risks of Easter egg-hunting scrambled his brains. “We’re in Scandinavia for a chunk of the summer, and our kids just run around at parks,” he said. “They’re jumping off things, and some of our friends there say we should be grateful for the small accidents, because then we learn from them, and that prevents the big accidents.”

Yeah, say the lawyers. Tell that to Humpty Dumpty.