protecting the church, part 2

Preliminary Actions to Avoid Legal Liability :

Preliminary Actions to Avoid Legal Liability Group One: Alexander Long, Brian Chilton, Michael Oliver Slides by: Alex Long Narrated by: Brian Chilton

Seven Questions About Your Churches Employment Practices::

Seven Questions About Your Churches Employment Practices: 1. Do you have an employee handbook that sets out church policy on various employment practices? 2. Do you have written job descriptions for employees to avoid future disputes or controversies? 3. Do you have confidentiality agreements with employees to protect proprietary information such as donor lists or giving records? 4. If you need to terminate an employee, is there a procedure to reduce or eliminate claims or lawsuits? 5. Do you have an enforceable agreement with employees to keep disputes from going to court? 6. Can your Senior Pastor or other pastoral staff be terminated or are they entitled to any protections not available to other employees? Does there have to be a particular reason for the termination? 7. Is the Church in compliance with wage and hour laws? Many churches have been found not to be.( The Church Law Group)

What will this do for the Church?:

Better practices within the church avoid lawsuits and liability. Although not guaranteed, better practices will provided a structure for many task that are performed within the church. What will this do for the Church?

How can structure help avoid lawsuits and unnecessary use of liability insurance? :

Example: If an employees, or volunteers position termination is questioned. If the procedures were followed as in the hand book, (which has been reviewed by legal council), then the likelihood of there being grounds for questionable termination are negligible. How can structure help avoid lawsuits and unnecessary use of liability insurance?

Risk Management:

We enter into another type of legal risk when we take a group of people off campus. ( Insurance coverage is discussed in a later section.) A medical release form would waive an individuals rights to sue an organization for any harm, or loss in the participation in any stated activity. To manage or lessen the legal risk of the church we can implement the requirement of medical release forms for anyone under the age of 18. (Olson) Risk Management

When should Permission Forms be Used?:

If you are transporting students off site for anything , you need permission forms. If you conduct an overnight at your church building you need permission slips. If a small group of students go with a leader anywhere you need permission slips. Pastoral advice from veteran leaders: “Don’t visit anyone or drive anyone alone if it can be avoided.” A permission form may not be totally legal binding but it will prove that the involved party did understand that there were risks involved and they chooses to wave there right to sue that organization.(Olson) When should Permission Forms be Used?

Slide 7:

The procedures discussed in this section are not fail proof. Theses procedures do provided evidence that the church has handled the given task systematically and not individualistic in any way. These actions may prove to be useful in inhibiting legal matters from proceeding past the reassertion to the interested parties that the actions taken were previously agreed upon. If successful the use of liability insurance would prove to be unnecessary due to thoughtful preliminary actions. Conclusion

References::

Olson Ginny, Elliot Diane, and Work Mike. Youth Ministry Management Tools (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 220. The Church Law Group, “Seven Building Blocks of the 21st Century” n.p . [ Accessed April 2 2011]. Online: http://churchlawgroup.com/seven_building_blocks.php References:

Please visit the 3rd and Final Section from Michael Oliver:

Please visit the 3 rd and Final Section from Michael Oliver