Should I get PADI Dive Master?

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As a new instructor if I have a DM I will tip him/her for sure for helping out. Especially if I know they won’t get paid or very little by the shop. :)
 
If the DM / diver is just a client diving with the op.. I don’t see why he would be responsible other than to his buddy.. the dive op staff on the other hand I understand..
Any one can be sued. During discovery period Lawyers can find out rating of everyone on boat at the time of incident. Even if only a ow card was shown at check in. I was on a boat when a fatality happened. Any one with a pro rating was sued . No pro was diving with victim, case went no where AFAIK. Bottom feeder lawyers went after pros liability insurance money.
 
Any one can be sued. During discovery period Lawyers can find out rating of everyone on boat at the time of incident. Even if only a ow card was shown at check in. I was on a boat when a fatality happened. Any one with a pro rating was sued . No pro was diving with victim, case went no where AFAIK. Bottom feeder lawyers went after pros liability insurance money.

What was the title of the case (plaintiff v. defendant) and the jurisdiction (state)? I would like to research/read up on it.

-Z
 
If someone is injured or killed in a diving accident, say, on a day boat, the first thing their family's lawyer is going to do is get a list of everyone on the boat and their certification levels. Then he's going to notice you've been trained to lead, supervise, and teach other divers, which means you've been taught how to spot behaviors that telegraph an accident waiting to happen and intervene.
This comes up regularly in ScubaBoard threads. I cannot begin to guess how many times I have asked people to produce evidence that it has ever happened successfully. I have asked people to provide any documents from PADI or any other agency warning that it can happen. Nothing appears in response to those requests. Sure it is possible someone can sue you, but it would not go far.

I am sure that as Zef checks, he will have a hard time even finding many cases where a DM actively leading a dive was successfully sued. We have had threads on that as well, and while there have been cases, there aren't many. In the cases I know of, the DM was grossly negligent. In one case I cited recently in another thread, the DM led OW divers with AL 80s past 130 feet, ignored a diver's low-on-air signal, and refused to share air when that diver signaled OOA. In another case, DMs calling the roll after a dive failed to notice that a diver had not yet returned from the dive, and the boat left the diver behind.

There was a near precedent a couple years ago in Malta that was very troubling. The quick version (from memory) is that a group of divers (not a class) decided to do a dive in marginal sea conditions. Two of the divers died, with both determined to have suffered immersion pulmonary edema, which was not related to the sea conditions. Incredibly, one of the divers was charged with something like manslaughter (IIRC) on the theory that he was a certified instructor and should have told the group the sea conditions were too rough, and he should have been successful in rescuing the divers. (He did successfully get them to the surface.) This went on for a surprisingly long time before being dropped. The reason for the dropping is instructive for this discussion. It is believed that all the Maltese dive operations pressured the government, knowing that divers would not come to Malta if they thought there was a chance they could be charged/sued just because they were nearby when a fatality occurred.
 
Sure it is possible someone can sue you, but it would not go far.
I think this is the key bit. In that the DM, who was off duty or who had never actually worked, would need to be involved in someway in the process of it not going very far. Which would cost money and time.

And they would need to be careful throughout all their diving about advise or assistance they give and if they were ever inadvertently creating a duty of care.

Zef might educate us on when cases get into WestLaw. When they go to court or even if dropped pre trial (but post pretrial expenses to get them dropped or defendants removed). I do not know.
 
I think this is the key bit. In that the DM, who was off duty or who had never actually worked, would need to be involved in someway in the process of it not going very far. Which would cost money and time.
Yep, it can happen. You can also get hit by a meteorite. It can happen, but I don't wear a helmet all day for protection.

First of all, how often has it happened? Zef has not found a case yet. I don't know of a case after participating in many discussions about this in which attorneys have searched for such cases.

I don't care if other divers on a boat know I am an instructor, but I am careful not to say anything which can remotely be construed as an offer to take any responsibility.
 
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This comes up regularly in ScubaBoard threads. I cannot begin to guess how many times I have asked people to produce evidence that it has ever happened successfully. I have asked people to provide any documents from PADI or any other agency warning that it can happen. Nothing appears in response to those requests. Sure it is possible someone can sue you, but it would not go far.

If you attend the yearly talk at DEMA given by the attorney who represents plaintiffs, you will hear him tell you just that.
 
If you attend the yearly talk at DEMA given by the attorney who represents plaintiffs, you will hear him tell you just that.
Well, then, is there anything written?
 
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