Parents sue Boy Scouts for 2011 negligence death

[Wookie]

He didn't say he'd cover you, he said he wouldn't throw you under the bus. If you set out to break standards, you've thrown yourself under the bus. I'm sure he'll still defend you, but your insurance company may not foot the bill.

 

[The Chairman]

Florida has an equine activities law which I would like to see applied to Scuba:

https://www.animallaw.info/statute/...ability-statute-chapter-773-equine-activities

This Florida statute provides that an equine activity sponsor, an equine professional, or any other person shall not be liable for an injury to or the death of a participant resulting from the inherent risks of equine activities. Liability will not be limited by statute, however, where the equine professional or sponsor knew the tack or equipment was faulty, failed to make reasonable and prudent efforts to determine the ability of the participant to engage safely in the equine activity, owns or is otherwise in lawful possession of the land or facilities where the injury is attributable to a known dangerous latent condition, commits an act or omission that constitutes willful or wanton disregard for the safety of the participant, or intentionally injures the participant. Posting of warning signs alerting participants to the limitation of liability by law is also required.

It's my understanding that this even covers horses. I wonder if it will cover any injuries while beating a dead one?

We are an overly litigious society. Laws like this could go a long, long way to limit our exposure.
​

 

[boulderjohn]

Having read the court documents, I think there is a larger issue at play here that needs to be understood. Under item #5 of the complaint, the instructor is claimed to be an agent or employee of PADI. In its response, PADI denies that he is an agent or an employee of PADI.

Anyone associated with PADI in the last couple of years should recognize the language. For the past year or so PADI has gone to great lengths to "remind" people that they are not an agency, and that individual instructors, dive shops, etc., are not agents. The latest liability release and student record forms have a sign off for the customer to acknowledge this. I believe this all comes from an earlier and extremely important case. My understanding of this comes from a person who was hired to be an expert witness in that case. I think we all should try to get our heads around its implications.

In the earlier case, a dive club chartered a boat to take them for a three tank dive. Two members of the club, who were both PADI DMs, ran the show on the boat. They took role call after each dive to make sure each diver had gotten back on the boat before it went off to the next site. Incredibly, they missed a diver after the first dive, and they missed him again after the second. Luckily, he was found drifting in the ocean later that day by another boat.

In the ensuing lawsuit, PADI was included under the argument that the two DMs were acting as "agents" of PADI. Think about it. PADI had nothing to do with the charter. There was no instruction going on. No standards were involved. Taking the role accurately is not part of DM training. (In fact, only the captain or a boat employee can call the role, but the attorneys missed that little tidbit.) Despite that, the jury did indeed decide that the DMs were agents of PADI, and they found PADI liable to the tune of $2 million.

Now think that one through in terms of a precedent. Does it mean that every time any professional screws up in any way, the agency under which that professional trained can be sued, even if they did not have the most remote ties to the case? If I were running an agency, that would scare the bejeezus out of me.

 

[The Chairman]

You know Frank, there's been a lot of hullabaloo about TDI defending Ritchie K. Now, I consider Ritchie a friend, so I'm glad they defended him, but what I don't understand is what the mitigating factors were in his case. What about that case makes this so "special". Did he violate a standard or something? Mind you, Ritchie is a celebrity and probably a friend of many, many of the staff at TDI. How did that play into the decision here?

A year and a half ago, my car was stolen due to my son's gross negligence. It was subsequently totaled, and in spite of my son's complicity, they still covered the vehicle without even an inkling of a fight. It really didn't dawn on me that they could have denied the claim until my son died and some idiot said that they couldn't do anything about it since he was now dead. (No, I have not forgiven him for that unbelievably callous comment). If anyone had grounds to deny the claim: they did. Still, this is the first time I have brought this up. We kind of expect insurance companies to honor these claims.

 

[Wookie]

TDI didn't defend Richie, Willis did. Don't mix up your certification agencies and your insurance company. I know a lot about Richies case, Richie met DeWolf on my boat, dewolfs trimix instructor was my trimix instructor. TDI was not named in that suit.

 

[flots am]

Now think that one through in terms of a precedent. Does it mean that every time any professional screws up in any way, the agency under which that professional trained can be sued, even if they did not have the most remote ties to the case? If I were running an agency, that would scare the bejeezus out of me.

This is the first I've heard of the case, but if you give someone the title "Divemaster", it's kind of implied that at the very least, they can figure out when they've lost a diver.

Maybe the ruling will cut down on how much control and safety is implied by the agency's marketing, in cases where it doesn't actually exist.

If I was on the jury, I'd certainly rule that PADI was at least party responsible since they produced the training and testing materials and standards by which DMs are created. If DMs are truly not trained to know when they've lost a diver, that's about on par with a firefighter not being able to identify flames shooting out of the roof of house.

There was no instruction going on. No standards were involved

If they were "instructors" as a non-diver, I'd say "sure, they weren't teaching, everybody was on their own". However when you have two "divemasters" leading a dive, it sounds very much like they're performing in their professional capacity.

In reality I understand the difference between "in a class" and "not in a class" however I'd be willing to guess that 99%+ of the rest of the world doesn't and that's the part that matters.

flots.

 

[DelrayDM]

Florida has an equine activities law which I would like to see applied to Scuba:

This Florida statute provides that an equine activity sponsor, an equine professional, or any other person shall not be liable for an injury to or the death of a participant resulting from the inherent risks of equine activities. Liability will not be limited by statute, however, where the equine professional or sponsor knew the tack or equipment was faulty, failed to make reasonable and prudent efforts to determine the ability of the participant to engage safely in the equine activity, owns or is otherwise in lawful possession of the land or facilities where the injury is attributable to a known dangerous latent condition, commits an act or omission that constitutes willful or wanton disregard for the safety of the participant, or intentionally injures the participant. Posting of warning signs alerting participants to the limitation of liability by law is also required.

I don't know anything about horse sports, but I think this is why there are so many racetracks in Florida.

Florida 549.09 Motorsport nonspectator liability release.—

(2) Any person who operates a closed-course motorsport facility may require, as a condition of admission to any nonspectator part of such facility, the signing of a liability release form. The persons or entities owning, leasing, or operating the facility or sponsoring or sanctioning the motorsport event shall not be liable to a nonspectator or her or his heirs, representative, or assigns for negligence which proximately causes injury or property damage to the nonspectator within a nonspectator area during the period of time covered by the release.

"Non-spectator" means racers, mechanics, pit crew, media, etc etc

 

[Rhone Man]

Florida has an equine activities law which I would like to see applied to Scuba:

https://www.animallaw.info/statute/...ability-statute-chapter-773-equine-activities



It's my understanding that this even covers horses. I wonder if it will cover any injuries while beating a dead one?

We are an overly litigious society. Laws like this could go a long, long way to limit our exposure.
​

The strange thing is, that FL statute is really just stating what the common law is anyhow. It is really the way that the law has come to be applied that has turned society wonky. I always remember reading a reported case from the 1950s about a guy who was watching an ice hockey match and he got hit by a puck and it knocked all his teeth out. He sued, and he lost. The court held if you choose to sit rinkside at an ice hockey match, these are the sort of risks that you take. No way in a million years that case gets decided the same way today, but strictly speaking the common law has never changed - if you voluntarily assume risks, you theoretically have no claim if you get hurt as a result. Just that juries (and some judges) don't seem to get that through their thick skulls.

We also saw it on a larger scale with tobacco litigation. Whatever tobacco companies may or may not have done, everybody, and I mean everybody,knew that smoking caused serious health problems since the early 1960s. They slapped it all over the packet for goodness sakes. And for that reason claimants historically always lost their cases. Until a few years ago when inexplicably they started to win. Law hasn't changed. Society has.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

The strange thing is, that FL statute is really just stating what the common law is anyhow.

Even more amusing, occasionally such statutes make it worse than how the common law approach worked because they're worded...inartfully. See, e.g., HRS 663-1.54. Talk about a whoops by the rec industry.

 

[The Chairman]

TDI didn't defend Richie, Willis did. Don't mix up your certification agencies and your insurance company. I know a lot about Richies case, Richie met DeWolf on my boat, dewolfs trimix instructor was my trimix instructor. TDI was not named in that suit.

Two people called me to state this exact thing: TDI did not defend Ritchie and he was not allowed to continue as an instructor for them. That being the case, why was it cited as evidence that TDI is better than the other agencies? Was that just more twist to be used as part of a marketing ploy? This industry has this horrible yet prevalent attitude: "If I don't teach, sell or dive it, then it must be crap!" While I used to see this as problematic mostly among dive shops, I am beginning to discern it among a number of agencies, manufacturers and tech divers. I get that it's a competitive industry, but this constant eviscerating your competition is not good for anyone.