Volunteer Protection Act - General

General

The Act generally eliminates the liability of an individual volunteer for damage caused by his or her simple or ordinary negligence, so long as the individual was acting within the scope of his or her responsibility to the eligible organization and was not grossly negligent or intentionally trying to cause harm. The Act provides protection to the individual volunteer only; it does not immunize or otherwise limit or affect the liability of the nonprofit organization or government entity itself.

However, as explained below in more detail, the Act's protection for volunteers does not extend to damage caused by acts involving motor vehicles, crimes of violence, hate crimes, sexual offenses, violations of Civil Rights, or misconduct involving intoxication or drugs.

The volunteer's protection under the VPA is not an absolute immunity, but rather a qualified immunity against liability for certain tort claims. In particular, the Act only provides immunity against claims that the volunteer caused harm by his or her "simple" or "ordinary" negligence. Claims that the injury was caused by gross negligence, or by willful or criminal misconduct, or by a conscious and flagrant indifference to the victim's rights or safety, are not within the scope of the protection afforded to volunteers by the Act.

In some interesting provisions that evoke cooperative federalism, the Act allows a state to impose conditions upon a volunteer's immunity under the Act. Specifically, a state might by legislation require that, as a condition of a volunteer's immunity under the Act, the nonprofit must provide a "financially secure source of recovery" for potential victims who are harmed by the nonprofit's volunteers. In such a state, only an adequately insured nonprofit would be able to offer the Act's immunities to its volunteers.

The VPA's exclusions of liability should be distinguished from the doctrine of charitable immunity, which provides an exclusion in some circumstances to charitable organizations, rather than specifically to the individual actors.

The Act's exclusions are related to, but still different from, the limitations provided under Good Samaritan laws, which are often available to individuals acting in medical emergencies and acting on their own rather than on behalf of any organization.