Thread: Has anyone had any legal issues with Halloween?

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I just read a thread about people stealing halloween props, but that makes me think of another issue. I personally have never had one, but has anyone encountered issues with insurance or people complaining (maybe they were to scared or their kids were too scared) I'm just wondering if anyone has and how it worked out.

We haven't had any issues with Halloween setup. not even at the medical office were I work. I figured the one of the Jehovah's Witnesses would have said something too my boss. (We decorate for all holidays at work.) I figure that our area is still mostly of Christine belief. Most people ether go with flow for holidays, or hide in their house until it's over.
Do you have a dark cloud in your neighborhood?

I was wondering similar questions too. If I caught someone stealing it would depend on the age. If they were young kids then just tell em it's not right (kids will be kids) if there teens they know better, I would pretend to call the police. That would really scare them. If it was adults stealing then they know for sure it's not right and take any kind of leagal action.

As far as someone falling on my property and getting hurt, I'm not sure. I'v read around the web that if you post signs stating that they could fall or trip or even the simple watch your step then they can't do anything to you.

If it's to scary or not, well that's up to adults. You can't by law get in trouble. It's there choice to go in.

If you do a walk through it's always good to have a few caution signs up, and to take photo's of them in there place. Make sure they are all visable. I would double check with your local police department or courts on that.

Last year I had an exposed coffin prop that I hid in and would jump out of when TOT's walked up my to my door. The frame was made of wood, but I made the door out of foam for safety.

Anyway, I jumped out at one point and scared this little girl so bad that she tried to make a B-line to her parents by jumping over the coffin and running across the lawn. Well she didn't quite make it over me and she got caught up and landed face first into the dirt and started crying.

I thought that would be it--I'm getting sued, but her parents laughed it off and said it was ok and that it was her fault for trying to jump over me.

This year I'm taking some added precautions.

Ohhh you have to talk to haverghast asylum about legal issues ..he has it bad real bad ,he isn't even allowed to put up his stuff untill the 15 of oct

Thanks. We always do a few walk throughs and walk in front of our yard in the road to make sure we can see our signs (you know the "warning signs"). Usually my wife handles people control and directs them. But we are building halloween up much larger this year and we follow the same actions but I just want to see if what I do is relatively the same. We only had one issue where a kid was so scared in the road he wouldn't even come in the yard and ran away. But last year, a woman had a child in her arm and asked if the child would be scared and we basically told her that it was her choice to bring the child in there and there were people inside the tunnel trying to scare people. It is halloween after all. Well, she went through and the child came out screaming and crying. We did personally warn her, but she went anyway. This year, we are building several "rooms" and will be directing a few people at a time for safety. We always think safety first.

Originally Posted by Hamm

We haven't had any issues with Halloween setup. not even at the medical office were I work. I figured the one of the Jehovah's Witnesses would have said something too my boss. (We decorate for all holidays at work.) I figure that our area is still mostly of Christine belief. Most people ether go with flow for holidays, or hide in their house until it's over.
Do you have a dark cloud in your neighborhood?

My high school art teacher was a JW. I brought him a Christmas present one year and told him that I knew he didn't celebrate but I still wanted to give him something. He said that even though he doesn't celebrate he still likes to receive stuff. He was a great teacher. I also had a couple of friends that were JWs and they were perfectly fine with how we celebrated holidays.

I'm uber-paranoid about insurance/getting sued, so we don't do a walkthrough, just a fenced-off display.

If you are doing any sort of a walkthorugh or haunt, it might be a good idea to talk to your insurance agent to see what your liability is and how to protect yourself. I remember reading that as long as it is a temporary thing, and you are not receiving any money or donations for it, you don't have to get extra insurance, but I'm sure it's based on a case-by-case basis.

About two years ago, we had a kid trip on our walkway up to the door. It is lined with landscape stones (year-round) and a woman pushing a HUGE stroller ( ) dislodged one of the stones (by going OFF our sidewalk) right before the kid came running up. I was thinking that we were getting sued for sure, but the kid just hopped right up and came to get his candy, no skinned knee or anything and his parents just laughed. I was already on my way to fix it, so I just waited until they were gone, cause I don't think they even noticed why the kid tripped.

As a rule of thumb, you can be sued by anyone, anytime, for anything. Yeah signs work as a deterrent most of the time. But you never know when that one person decides it's too much.

For example, one of our actors was leaving the exit of the building to walk around the corner for a smoke break. 3 teens happened to be looking in his direction and thought he was coming towards them. All 3 broke and ran in to a group of people causing another teen to fall and break her arm.

Can you guess who was sued??? Yup, with signs, insurance, and all the bases covered...we are out $1600 of medical bills.

We are a Pro Haunt, not sure how the home haunters could deal with it, but I'm sure most home insurance policies would cober it. It's no different than throwing a superbowl party and someone falling there.

I am a new member to these message boards and it is great to see all the other people with the same love of Halloween as myself. The problem is, there are people out there that just don't appreciate or even understand the holiday. I've been decorating in our small little town for the past 10 or so years, every year adding more to the yard displays. A few years, around the first of October, my father and I were in the garage building displays, props, etc. and we noticed three cars going slowly down the road in front of the house. We thought nothing of it, but a few hours later we had a visit from a couple town board members. The town had received complaints about the decorations in our yard and the lights we used to illuminate certain Halloween scenes. Now the town was forced to supervise our Halloween decorations and lighting. Anways, based on what other neighbors told us these three were passing around a petition against our decorations. To make this short, other neighbors put together a petition that was "for" our decoration, as it was a good thing we do for the kids in town and then the mayor of the town stepped in and gave us complete control to do as we pleased - minus trying to avoid having direct light shine towards certain neighbors houses. Everyone loves our decorations and people begin asking us what we have planned months before October 31st.

As for warning signs and the likes, we create two major areas to the yard: One, a kid friendly area with friendly ghosts and 20+ carved pumkins. Another area, with graveyard, ghouls, skeletons, body parts, etc.. Then we decorate the inside of the garage so that people can walk in. There are object that move and stuff. The point is, we place "caution and beware" signs all over the place. All in all, it is too bad that Halloween is only one night.......