most of the time lawyers can find ways to make them moot. As an example, my son broke his wrist at a gym where he was doing an exercise that was lead by one of the gym's trainers. He was backpedaling and tripped over a hump in the carpet where, for whatever reason, it had gotten bunched up. He tripped on it and broke his wrist trying to break his fall. We signed a waiver to have our son work out there which stated we indemnify the gym for any injuries. A lawyer told me that because of the hump in the carpet, we could make a claim that the gym was negligent and therefore the waiver did not apply. He (the lawyer) also encouraged me to not go that route as all it does is raise the cost of everyone using gyms because their liability insurance premiums go up due to these types of lawsuits. Overall the gym and its management were great in the years we worked out there so I had no interest in suing over the incident, but this is a case where waivers don't do much more than just deter people from suing, but once a suit is filed, the waivers don't offer much protection.