Negligent Instructor?

[PRL]

Another point is that many of the diving professionals who oppose teaching solo diving, turn right around and safely practice it. That has to create a credibility issue

Interesting point. Never crossed my mind.
And like you said, Im sure that TDI legal team concidered the legal aspects of solo cert, and that LLoids of London were involved as well.
Im with AADiveRex, other agencies are probably waiting to see the first trial that would establish a baseline for future action and probably will not jump on the wagon untill this hapens.

Leadership entails risk. A higher risk level, that is.

I like "pioniers are the guys with arrows in their backs"

In my opinion, this implies that solo diving can and should be practiced as a recreational diving activity

I do agree with you 100%, I think that SDI/TDI went for broke on this one. "Its all or nothing"
I do like your aproach to training of self relience reather than solo diving. There are those divers that all they are after is the "license to solo" so they probably wont get the full benefit of your aproach, but still might learn something valuable. There is only so much a good instructor can do.

The instructor can only be held to his/her own agency's regs and procedures.

I'm hoping that this is the case because it is the only logical measure IMO. But than again lawyers have a way of imprinting their own beneficial logic on the jury.

The plantiff would be hard pressed to win the case if the jury was all solo divers.

I think that this is the bottom line and when a suit similar to my example goes to trial, the longest and hardest part will be jury selection.

 

[PRL]

IMO yours is a very good and in depht perspective VeniVidi. There are many divers that take the training for the training and the experience. For instance serious tech divers in order to do what they do, have to understand the risks involved and have to be trained and experienced to manage those risks, a cert card has no meaning to them. Also their families usually understand those risks as well.
Many recreational divers are the same way, and they take on the responcibility for them selves. In an unlikely trial the jury would probably say that the diver should know better.
There are however those divers that dont realize that a cert card is a license to learn and does not guarante success. There are also families that do not understand the risks involved and either view scuba as a very dangerous sport for the wrong reasons or a very safe sport with no real risks. Those people will be very disapointed and will seek someone to blame for a tragic accident. Plus the prospect of pro insurance and a potencial Pay-out is very tempting to try and they dont have to pay unless the lawyer wins something. Lawyers will be more than happy to look into it because they get 1/3 of what they can win (and they will do what ever it takes to win). Remember, in US a lady won a sattlement($86 mil?) for spilling hot coffe on her self while driving and taking off the lid that btw said "Caution, Hot Coffe", go figure. Many doctors seek other proffesions because they cant afford liability insurance because of law suits

On a different note, I have a friend that is an accomplished cave diver and he has to take a solo class because the local quarry will not let him in without a solo cert. card or a buddy to play around with his equipment. My guess is, he will find the cheapest and shortest course with a less than informative instructor so he can get his "Solo Certification" I bet that the instructor will learn more from him than he from the course.

 

[Walter]

The bottom line is any one can sue for any reason. The jury will decide the issues. Lots of possible outcomes - finding in favor of the defendent, finding the instructor only liable, finding the instructor blameless, but holding the agency liable, finding against both instructor and agency, but the most likely outcome is an out of court settlement.

 

[PRL]

but the most likely outcome is an out of court settlement.

Because its the least expensive. The down side is that defendents will fold and settle reather than spend the massive amount of money to defend them selves and win. Which in turn encourages law suits to be filed as an almolst sure fire Pay-out

It is an option I didnt think about. But I would like to see a trial to esteblish a baseline and in turn possibly filter out suits with no reasonable grounds

 

[spthomas]

Now, this has to work in conjunction with the concept of Liability - Are you liable for the negligent act? Liability usually requires that:
1. Someone was injured (physically, emotionally, monetarily, something happened that was detrimental to them in some manner).
2. You did something or failed to do something.
3. By doing or not doing something, you were the cause of the injury or loss.
4. The something you did or failed to do was Negligent. Negligence is defined as – negligence is the committing an act which a person exercising ordinary care would not do under similar circumstances definition - or the failure to do what a person exercising ordinary care would do under similar circumstances.

So, did they suffer some loss (death, injury, monetary loss)?

And if they did, did you cause it somehow by something you did or didn't do(training them? or encouraging them? is that enough to say you caused or contributed to it?)

And, was this thing you did (say training them) negligent? Woud a person using ordinary care (the old "reasonable and prudent person") think that your training or certification was reasonable?

Lots of questions. Honestly, it depends on a jury. ANYONE can sue ANYONE for ANYTHING. As long as the judge decides there are valid questions to be examined at trial, they'll allow it to go forward.

So, is solo diving defensible at all? Maybe, since lots of divers do it. Maybe not, since other agencies don't agree.

Is the SDI cert a reasonable standard? Maybe, since they are a well-recognized and accepted agency, and have consistent and reasonable (?) standards for their solo cert. But maybe not, since no one else has this.

So, could you be sued? definitely. Would you lose? Who knows?

But, honestly, as a dive buddy or dive instructor, you are liable to be sued anyway. LOTS of them have been. Being sued just means someone THINKS they are injured. Getting it to trial just means the judge THINKS there MAY be a valid case to be presented. The TRIAL is the means to examine the facts and determine the liability involved. It's unfortunate that this process, which was meant to PREVENT undo burdens on people accused of things while preserving the rights of the injured, has turned into an undo, devastating burden all by itself, in terms of emotional toil for YEARS sometimes, and crippling legal fees.

Oops, I'm rambling! But this is a hot button of mine.

=Steve=

 

[PRL]

I don't think that you are rambling, but from your post it appears that we are back at square one.

So maby, is there something else instructors should do to swing the verdict in their favor besides agency standards?
Approach of Xanthro and AADiveRex make sense.
But if we add to the SDI standards or change them are we exposing our selves to liability because we are not following "proven standards"?

 

[spthomas]

In the medical business we say "the best defense is to provide good care". So, in this case, the best defense is probably to follow the standards as they exist, and to follow other principles of safe, conservative diving. Being solo has no bearing on the other safety precautions you use, so be safe. Use good gas management, plan for redundancy.

Good, careful divers are good, careful divers, solo or in pairs. Reckless, careless divers are still that, individually or by the dozen. You can't protect someone from themselves.

This may sound backwards, but given that a lot of people WILL dive solo, the best, most safe course would be to create conservative, safe STANDARDS for solo diving, and for the agencies to embrace them. People ARE going to do it; by turning our heads away we only encourage folks to figure it out on their own, totally the opposite of good, standardized practices. We should establish the best practices, and teach them widely so everyone has access to that information. THEN the standards will be more universal, and will hold up in court better.

=Steve=

 

[wolf eel]

[since the cert is used to gain entry. So I can argue that posessing the cert allowed the diver to get into a hazardous situation where if the instructor didnt issue a cert the diver would have to dive with a buddy.

Also are dive centers, by requiring a solo cert to solo dive, opening them selves to liability?]

The cert card is to show you have done something to train yourself in that area. It does not mean you can forget your brain at the gate but that you have considered all out comes and choose to take a solo diving course that in its self said you have excepteded all risk. And that entry to this area and with your knowledge that you have been taught you fully understand what happens when it goes wrong and that death is a possible out come.

A course should remove all ability for some one to say I did not know this could happen or this is there fault because I was allowed to dive alone.

Cheers
Derek

 

[voop]

There is a difference between a dive buddy and an instructor. With an instructor there is a "Standard of Care"

Dive buddy can claim stupidity, an instructor should know better

...which brings us to: what if the dive-buddy is an instructor too, but not diving in that capacity? Should we suddenly start requireing liability-releases and the like when just doing "fun-diving" together as buddies?

(and while this is a serious post: should we all just sign up for solo-diving classes and never dive with buddies again? )

 

[voop]

You raise a legitimate concern, PRL. A few more points from a laymans perspective.

SCUBA is an unregulated industry. Most training agencies do not belong to the RSTC, even though the few that belong train most of the worlds divers, thanks to PADI. This means there is no universally accepted set of standards for all or most of the training agencies. Most are free to set their standards. While they agree on many points, they differ on others. I could be going out on a limb here, is there an organization that sets standards for most that I am not aware of? Easy question for someone to answer.

Another point is that many of the diving professionals who oppose teaching solo diving, turn right around and safely practice it. That has to create a credibility issue.

<SNIP>

Leadership entails risk. A higher risk level, that is.

If you teach an OW class, you are effectively diving solo. Unless, that is, you'd count on your novice dive students to be able to help you out if you get yourself into a mess. No standards for any major agencies (that I know of) require the instructor to have a buddy of equal level for the training. Or even suggest it, for that matter - additional staff in the water is for "supervisory purposes" of the students, not for the safety of the instructor. Hence, most diving-professionals do indeed dive solo -- in the sense that we (in principle, at least) should be entirely self-sufficient, pick dive-sites which are appropriate for solo-diving etc.

I see the credibility-issue only if we're *not* being prudent: in selecting unsuitable sites and conditions, or in diving with insufficient equipment for self-sufficiency.

Also, there *is* a difference between what you'd suggest to a student, and what a more experienced diver might feel ready for: I believe that I read right here on scubaboard that "if you need to ask for somebodys opinion as to if you're ready for solo-diving, then you're definitely not ready".....if someone asks me my opinion on solo-diving, I'll say that it's inheritly dangerous and should not be attempted....which it IMHO is, to the person who needs to ask me that question.