3. The Carney letter also claims that PADI did something that has never been done before in the industry, namely, sacrificing an instructor (“throwing him under the bus”
for its own interests.
*This is not true. Instead, it was the SDI/Willis attorney who broke the traditional dive industry approach to litigation defense and created the ensuing conflict. In the history of dive litigation, this is the first time (that I am aware of) that a dive organization allowed its insurance program or attorney to cross-complain or officially blame another organization when both had interests in a dive accident lawsuit.
Destroying this dive industry unity gives the plaintiffs a major advantage in a case. Once the "dive experts" begin accusing each other, the plaintiff's attorneys can sit back and take notes.
PADI Americas, the instructor and the dive store were sued by the parents of the deceased 12 year old boy, and were co-defendants. The claim against PADI Americas was that the program was defective and the instructor was PADI Americas' agent.
*Once the SDI/Willis attorney and insurance broker told the store and instructor to blame the DSD program, it put them in legal opposition with PADI. PADI then had to defend against attacks from two directions – from the plaintiffs and from the other defendants.
*In an already difficult case, this left PADI with only two options: 1) Accept the full blame and liability, which it would not do considering the circumstances, or 2) settle the case out of court (the option chosen).
*In dive accident cases like this (involving severe, indefensible standards violations by an instructor), PADI, its attorneys and its insurance program’s considerable defense experience is that such cases should be settled quickly, letting insurance do what it is designed to do, saving defense costs, protecting the insured instructors’ and dive stores’ interests and saving the families of the victims any more anguish than they have already suffered.
*As another example of unprecedented actions by the SDI/Willis attorney and the insurer, per their filed court documents, they also blamed the accident on the 12 year old deceased boy and victim, his mother, their doctor and medical center, the Boy Scouts, the Great Salt Lake (Boy Scouts) Council, and the other divers (the other 12 year old boy on the dive and his father also on the dive).
*It is difficult to imagine that professionals in our industry would try to defend lawsuits by allowing attorneys and insurers to blame dive students and dive program participants, but, this is not the first time such a strategy has been reported to have been used by the SDI/Willis attorney. In another case several years ago, an SDI/Willis-insured instructor (not a PADI Member) allowed a father and his teen-aged daughter to practice emergency ascents on their own in an entry-level diver course. The young lady died of an embolism. The SDI/Willis attorney blamed the father and the PADI Member dive boat, again putting the defendants in opposition to each other, and giving the plaintiffs strategic advantages in the case.
*When the SDI/Willis attorney and SDI-sponsored insurance program started blaming PADI, PADI's attorney called them and pled with them (his words), telling them "this approach is suicide" because it amounts to an attack on the entire dive industry's introductory programs. This is true because all such programs have the same underlying standards per the RSTC and ISO. Nonetheless, the SDI insurance broker responded that they were defending this way and were comfortable doing so. Interestingly, the broker also reportedly advised plaintiff's counsel that, if during the case it was discovered that the instructor had indeed violated standards, then they would simply deny coverage. (The SDI/Willis insurance program can deny coverage for any dive agency or community dive standard violation.)
