deepwaterferret
Guest
I read with interest some of the posts on the issues posed by dive masters and instructors who solo. There is the theory that if a student sees them doing that, and emulates the instructor's solo diving and gets injured or killed, the instructor will be legally liable.
I don't think a dive master or instructor owes any continuing legal duty to former students to continue to set "good examples." Though you may have a moral duty and the dive shop and certifying agency may feel you have a duty, the law does not impose one. Once the class is completely over with and the student is no longer diving under the instructor's supervision, the special legal relationship between instructor and student that forms the basis of legal duty and liability has ended.
So, if the student sees the instructor out at the lake a week later and sees the instructor soloing, and based upon that decides to do a solo dive himself, the relationship between that observation and the student's decision to solo and get hurt is too remote to be the legal cause. Furthermore, even if it is the legal cause, the instructor owed no duty to the former student.
This assumes, of course, that you gave the students the standard lecture about the buddy system and did not do your solo diving in front of them during or right after the class. It also assumes that you did not encourage the student to solo dive.
A high school health teacher has a duty to instruct students about the dangerous of smoking because that is part of the cirriculum. If the teacher contradicts this by giving the students cigarettes to smoke, the teacher is going to face criminal and civil liabilty. The parents could probably sue the teacher for causing their child to start smoking. But if a student sees the teacher smoking a cigarette out in public after school, and then decides to start smoking because the teacher is doing it, the teacher has no liability. The teacher may be a hypocrite, but that is not a basis for a lawsuit.
I don't think a dive master or instructor owes any continuing legal duty to former students to continue to set "good examples." Though you may have a moral duty and the dive shop and certifying agency may feel you have a duty, the law does not impose one. Once the class is completely over with and the student is no longer diving under the instructor's supervision, the special legal relationship between instructor and student that forms the basis of legal duty and liability has ended.
So, if the student sees the instructor out at the lake a week later and sees the instructor soloing, and based upon that decides to do a solo dive himself, the relationship between that observation and the student's decision to solo and get hurt is too remote to be the legal cause. Furthermore, even if it is the legal cause, the instructor owed no duty to the former student.
This assumes, of course, that you gave the students the standard lecture about the buddy system and did not do your solo diving in front of them during or right after the class. It also assumes that you did not encourage the student to solo dive.
A high school health teacher has a duty to instruct students about the dangerous of smoking because that is part of the cirriculum. If the teacher contradicts this by giving the students cigarettes to smoke, the teacher is going to face criminal and civil liabilty. The parents could probably sue the teacher for causing their child to start smoking. But if a student sees the teacher smoking a cigarette out in public after school, and then decides to start smoking because the teacher is doing it, the teacher has no liability. The teacher may be a hypocrite, but that is not a basis for a lawsuit.