Is it common to sign a document that excludes safari operators from any/all injury/death that may occur on a hunt, perticularly if its due to outright negligence on the part of the safari operator? I'm not advocating chasing ambulances here, just asking b/c I don't remember this on previous contracts...

An indemnity is fairly standard.
Normally it simply acknowledges that the hunter understands that hunting is dangerous and that he is responsible for his own actions.
It will also outline where the liability of the HO or PH begins and ends if it is part of a contract for a safari.

Don't know about safari contracts, but it is pretty much standard operating procedure here in the states. That isn't saying operators here don't or won't accept some or part of the responibility should something happen.

Some legal experts say that such clauses are not worth the paper they are written on.

In SA you can never, under any circumstances, indemnify anyone against an act of gross negligence on their part. It is my experience that precious few PH's (or their legal representatives/advisers, for that matter) realise this, so if someone wants me to sign a piece of paper whereby I indemnify him/her/the company against ANY act of negligence on their part, no matter what the cause thereof may be, I'll do so with a smile on my face as I know the courts will never give full effect to such a shotgun-style indemnity.

There's a whole truckload of case law in SA to support this.

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I'll do so with a smile on my face as I know the courts will never give full effect to such a shotgun-style indemnity.

JVW - It is however at least a leg to stand on when you get some p@#s who is there solely to try and sue you after he has left.
It is becoming a problem in the tourism industry and no doubt will hit the hunting world where guests are going on high priced safaris to to destinations with the sole intention of finding a way to sue the operator afterward.
They threaten media exposure and anything else they can to try and get the operator to settle out of court.

I will say this especially with SA based clients. There are so many unemployed lawyers hanging around this country now that they will happily latch onto anything they think they can screw out of anyone.
To my mind, any operator who is not working under the protection of a contract is going to eventually find himself in trouble.

AHQ-

I totally agree that a contract of sorts is necessary, but I've seen "indemnity" contracts that went so far as to be ridiculous.

Agreed that some lawyers try to go too far, but luckily the law is still (to some extent, at least) the law in SA.

Just as there are no-good lawyers out there, I've also seen my share of no-good PH's and outfitters that were only in the industry for a quick buck and dissappeared after the number of lawsuits against them got too much or they've scammed too many clients.

A properly drafted contract does wonders to protect the rights of BOTH parties, and I'm all for that. Having said that, I've had one wingshooting outfitter in SA who wanted me to indemnify him against any physical harm I might suffer in case of an accidental discharge "or similar" - that was the actual wording - by him, the gallant PH/outfitter protecting us against all those fearsome spurwings. You are welcome to guess what my reply to the man was.

One of my lawyer clients once wrote a whole bunch of his own clauses onto our indemnity form... like there must be vanilla icecream in camp and such things...

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Just as there are no-good lawyers out there, I've also seen my share of no-good PH's and outfitters that were only in the industry for a quick buck and dissappeared after the number of lawsuits against them got too much or they've scammed too many clients.

I couldn't agree more.
Some of the stories I have heard make me want to string a few of them up by their bollocks.

Do people really spend hours worrying about the detailed language of their safari contracts so that way if something goes wrong, they can make repeated trips across the pond to sue someone in a third world court? Good luck with that. If it's an agent in the US, that is one thing (though I think a clause such as the one discussed above would be useless in the event of real negligence)...but if we are talking about a direct contract with an outfitter, I think these concerns are a waste of time.