Disturbing trend in diving?

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

Circa 1998 - I was on Oahu, diving the YO wreck on the Atlantis submersible tour route basically off Waikiki. The crew asked me to buddy up with a gal who was a novice diver but certified to dive 90 feet deep. I agreed to buddy with her.

On the bottom somewhere around 90 fsw she started ascending, rather quickly. I grabbed her harness, dumped gas and basically rode her to the surface, dumping gas while her BCD was auto inflating.

I have had tort lawyers tell me that had she been injured or worse that I could have easily been named in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Clearly as @boulderjohn has stated no such action is on record. But I think these slimy ambulance chasing SOBs will eventually file such a suit.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

I posted an example

My apologies. I missed it.

 

[boulderjohn]

I posted an example of a diver who was sued by the estate of an instabuddy because he panicked and refused to share his gas. Scroll back a few pages, I'm not going to post it for a 3rd time.

You're welcome.

For maybe the fourth time, I will repeat that I went over that case in depth on post #341. Since you won;t look at it, I will copy and paste what I wrote there:
........................
Okay, let's talk about it, the closest case cited to your claim that randomly assigned buddies have been successfully sued. Note first that the suit was NOT successful.

I. The case was used to illustrate this point (page 83):
Under this theory, "by virtue of the nature of the activity and the parties' relationship to the activity, the defendant owes no legal duty to protect the plaintiff from the particular risk of harm that caused the injury."47

II. The two were not randomly selected buddies.

III. In the incident, one of them went out of air and tried to take the buddy's regulator to buddy breathe. The buddy panicked and fought off that attempt. The OOA diver drowned.

IV. Here is the analysis of the incident by the study's author:
The reasoning in Yace relied on the California Supreme Court's analogy to other sports where participants are not liable to each other for ordinary careless conduct committed during the game.55 Instead, a coparticipant only breaches his duty of care if he "intentionally injures another player or engages in conduct that is so reckless as to be totally outside the range of the ordinary activity involved in the sport."56

While there may be circumstances where a diver's negligent acts might increase the risks to his buddy and give rise to a duty of due care, the court found this was not true during an underwater emergency: "Unlike most other sports, the possibility of a life-threatening emergency in scuba diving is apparent, and indeed anticipated. Just as an emergency problem with air supply is itself an inherent risk of the sport, so also is the reaction to that emergency of one's diving buddy."57 In other words, plaintiffs' action was barred by the primary assumption of risk defense because panic constitutes an inherent risk of diving. Because Dushane panicked, or suffered "a sudden overpowering fright," his behavior could not "be characterized as careless, much less as reckless or intentional" so as to overcome the doctrine.58

 

[boulderjohn]

Clearly as @boulderjohn has stated no such action is on record. But I think these slimy ambulance chasing SOBs will eventually file such a suit.

I am not sure.

Read the analysis Li-er provided the first time. The author, who clearly believes there is a danger, tries to figure out why there aren't any such cases and predicts that someday there will be some. That was in 2008. It does not appear there has been any in the ensuing 17 years.

The second Undercurrent article is similarly puzzled. Why aren't there any cases?

I got the answer some years ago when my son was injured and we tried a couple of different attorneys about starting a suit. They refused. Why? The law was clearly against us, and they only get paid if they win the case. If you read through the first article again, you will clearly see that the law works against the liability.

Instead, a coparticipant only breaches his duty of care if he "intentionally injures another player or engages in conduct that is so reckless as to be totally outside the range of the ordinary activity involved in the sport."56

Personal injury lawyers only collect if they win the case. If they don't think they are going to win, they won't file the case. The track record so far shows clearly that they aren't going to win such a case, so they aren't going to try.

 

[Bubblesong]

Last time i tried to rent gear in Florida, the computers were ALL still locked out due to previous renters going out of deco. No partial refund for the faulty gear, but brought my own wrist computer at all times now.
Plus i learned tables but had to teach my kids since the shops training does not hammer that or even teach it to them

 

[SouthernSharktoothDiver]

So, on the subject of the lawsuit thing some people have been discussing. A lawyer I know, whenever I ask him if I could sued for something, always says the same thing:

“You can always get sued.”

Somewhere out there is a lawyer who will take the case, bill by the hour, and lose. Doesn’t mean it’ll happen to you, or even to anyone at all. Just means it can. On the one hand, you need to ask yourself if you want the hassel and expense of defending such a lawsuit.

On the other, do you wanna live your life in fear that you might get sued over nothing? Do your research, cover your bases to a reasonable degree, then go live your life. Trust that if it comes to it, twelve hopefully honest men will agree with you. That’s my take on all this.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

So, on the subject of the lawsuit thing some people have been discussing. A lawyer I know, whenever I ask him if I could sued for something, always says the same thing:

“You can always get sued.”

Somewhere out there is a lawyer who will take the case, bill by the hour, and lose. Doesn’t mean it’ll happen to you, or even to anyone at all. Just means it can. On the one hand, you need to ask yourself if you want the hassel and expense of defending such a lawsuit.

On the other, do you wanna live your life in fear that you might get sued over nothing? Do your research, cover your bases to a reasonable degree, then go live your life. Trust that if it comes to it, twelve hopefully honest men will agree with you. That’s my take on all this.

Draw up a buddy waiver and make them sign it.
We have a multi page waiver that we make all our volunteer divers and shore support fill out and sign. I had an attorney help me with it.
That's about the best you can do. Other than that just go out and have fun and live your life.

 

[glazerama]

So, lately I've seen some things posted that have me raising my eyebrows a bit.
There have been a few stories posted about people relying completely on the divemasters or guides for their bottom times, NDL status, basic dive profiles. This seems to be in Mexico from what I gather but it might include some other locations.
The trend seems to be that these divers in question don't have computers or depth gauges/any kind of timing device and rely 100% on the divemasters to take care of them and keep them safe.
Is this a thing?

I saw this in Moorea in January. Reputable shop with good reviews. Did not require computer or bottomtimer and did not rent as part of normal gear package. Said French agency did not require them as the dive master was responsible. I had the appropriate gear for my party but was shocked.

 

[TLBoehnke]

So, lately I've seen some things posted that have me raising my eyebrows a bit.
There have been a few stories posted about people relying completely on the divemasters or guides for their bottom times, NDL status, basic dive profiles. This seems to be in Mexico from what I gather but it might include some other locations.
The trend seems to be that these divers in question don't have computers or depth gauges/any kind of timing device and rely 100% on the divemasters to take care of them and keep them safe.
Is this a thing?

I was in Cozumel two weeks ago and there were two men on my boat that hadn't dived in over a year and had no computers or charts with them. They relied solely on the DM's profile and time, as well as their air. They knew they did not have computers!

 

[Allen-1]

I was in Cozumel two weeks ago and there were two men on my boat that hadn't dived in over a year and had no computers or charts with them. They relied solely on the DM's profile and time, as well as their air. They knew they did not have computers!