Roundabout Liability For Volunteers
The Act seems to allow for an anomalous kind of "roundabout" litigation, whereby it takes away with the left hand what it has tried to give with the right hand.
To illustrate this rather interesting legal conundrum, suppose that Vicki Volunteer, as before, has rather unfortunately allowed a dangerous dog to escape the custody of the animal shelter. Vicki was negligent but not grossly so in her mistake.
Vance Victim is bitten and he sues both Vicki and the shelter based on Vicki's ordinary negligence causing him physical harm.
In her defense, Vicki pleads the Act and thereby avoids any liability to Vance.
The shelter, however, through the legal doctrine of respondeat superior is found to be vicariously liable to Vance, based on Vicki's negligence, and is subjected to a judgment for $100,000, which is paid by the shelter's insurance company.
Under ordinary legal principles of subrogation, the insurance company "inherits" all the ordinary rights that the shelter had against Vicki for indemnification; and the insurance company therefore sues Vicki for ordinary indemnification and wins a judgment for $100,000.
If Vicki is indeed held liable to indemnify the insurer (or, indeed, to indemnify the shelter itself in a simpler case where there is no insurance), then the policies of the Act will be thwarted; but the Act by its express terms appears to allow for precisely such an outcome. If the "roundabout" claim is indeed permitted, then the Act's protections will be largely an illusion.
Read more about this topic: Volunteer Protection Act
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—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)