Suit filed in case of "Girl dead, boy injured at Glacier National Park

[Wookie]

This is what you said.

there Is exactly ONE reason to sue PADI under these circumstances…. Financial Ability to collect a judgment. PERIOD. It’s certainly not the facts or current case law/precedents….

I’m telling you that there may be other considerations, but you go on believing that folks only consideration is money.

As I say, it looks good on you. Have you ever done anything for passion?

 

[Omisson]

This is what you said.

I’m telling you that there may be other considerations, but you go on believing that folks only consideration is money.

As I say, it looks good on you. Have you ever done anything for passion?

No..I don’t care what YOU think his “motivations” are. What I do know is- that as good an attorney as DC is- he also has a clear anti-PADI bias from a past case we all know about, and he is a lawyer - who makes a living in the arena of personal injury and maritime law.

So as an attorney he has a LEGAL OBLIGATION and a FIDUCIARY DUTY to the client he takes, FIRST AND FOREMOST.

You can play your armchair “I know the secret reason” crap all you’d like - it doesn’t change the attorney’s obligation as the representative of the litigant. It is FIRST AND FOREMOST: is there a viable claim, a permissive legal theory of recovery, and a means to collect a judgment.

So, if there isn’t a means to collect the attorney may incur costs the client cannot afford to pay… no bueno.

I am NOT speculating as to why any attorney takes any case- and the fact you are attributing some Don Quioxte noble purpose to DC is just that… speculation. What I am saying is not speculation, attorneys have certain duties to their clients, which are paramount. They cannot Vallo anything other than the client’s interest lead their actions.

So, are you saying you know DC has an agenda above his client’s interests? Better be very careful saying something like that….

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

In one of your more recent attacks, you cited the case of Tareq Saade, and you use his 2012 fatality to attack the shop through which he was being trained. For some reason you were unable to find the ScubaBoard thread about the incident.

Scubaboard didn't pop up.

If you review it in its entirety, you will see that several people did all they could to blame the instructor for the death, but in the end the people who recovered the body, including the highly reputable Lamont (then the moderator of the DIR forum on ScubaBoard), concluded that absolutely nothing was done wrong.

Would you care to post which comment numbers actually state what you claim? As I'm not seeing it after 2 passes. I did skip over some of the nonrelevant discussion and I didn't see that. People have tendency to interpret things to support their agenda, so I figured I'd ask in case I am guilty of that in my readings of that thread.

The dive had gone according to plan, and everything was within standards. The class was routinely headed back to shore. The student, a reasonably experienced diver taking an AOW class, suddenly and without warning bolted to the surface and died.

Well, isn't an instructor supposed to maintain control, position themselves to ensure control, etc.? Now mind you, I think this is an impossible thing to guarantee. That thread doesn't have all the information necessary to say how the system could be changed. You think I'm in this crusade against PADI, but I'm not. I'm all for agencies lowering ratios, lack of practical guidelines on a number of important topics. I'm really big on proper weighting, and I think most agencies do a really poor job at this.

In fact, there is an agency, not PADI, that if they ever have a lawsuit at a dive center in which a friend of mine worked and reported some of the craziest standards violations I have heard from anyone anywhere, I will contact the plaintiff and do everything I can to make that agency burn for ignoring seriously dangerous practices. Again, not PADI.

What would you have done differently on that dive?

I can't say what I would do differently as I don't have all the information about equipment and so on. I determine proper weighting, I require (provide my own if needed) good dive lights even during the day. There's also the standard of always being in control. Now while I think this is impossible to guarantee, I do limit myself to 2 students.

I believe every instructor in every class has the potential for something like that to happen, so we with perfect safety records are all to some extent lucky not to being named as something akin to a murderer on ScubaBoard.

Oh John, I can always count on you to go over the top. "Attacks" (you mean "statements") "Akin to a murderer" (you mean :improperly trained or negligent or both") Shaking my head. And yes, with the poor training, high maximum ratios, etc.., I consider myself one of those lucky ones. I'm not out to lynch the instructor, but I think in the interest of safety, we should do everything we can to avoid future incidents. And I feel that agencies, being the ones to train instructor, bear responsibility for this.

The tragic death Tareq Saade is a data point and does merit analysis. Unfortunately, not all information is available in this or more fatalities. The point I'm making that should be obvious to the people who are not obtuse or blinded by their agency worship, is that when fatalities occur, these should be used to determine what changes may mitigate this.

To me, it is all about changing the systems.

Now for Seattle Scuba and the death of Patricia Flores-Perez, there was another shop teaching at Cove 1 that day, and I spoke to that instructor. The information i have is that there was 2:4 ratio, instructor (supposedly Tareq's instructor) signalled everyone to surface. Everyone did, but Ms. Florez-Perez. The instructor, assistant, and 3 other students were low on air and did not attempt to search for the missing students, nor did they notify anyone on shore, as the instructor from the other shop was still kitted up and could have grabbed a tank and been out on the water within 2-minutes. Would it have saved the young woman's life? Probably not. I'm not going to bury the instructor, as I can't speak to how I would handle having lost a student. I'm interested in changing the system so that students are not so easily lost. Or in the case of Yuyu Xu who died just over a year ago, not have so many divers together at night (2 instructors, 7 students. There is no way I could keep track of 8 other lights at night in for an entire dive. Not a chance). They were within standards, and I think those standards (not just PADI's) need to change.

I won't claim that there won't be fatalities ever with these changes and more being changed, but I do believe sincerely that some deaths may be avoided. And that's the important thing here. I'm not looking at the scale of an NTSB investigation/conclusion, but for there to be something meaningful.

 

[MtnDiverColorado]

So, in your view, if they commit malpractice, is the med school responsible at law?
How about state medical board that charges them every year a license that comes with ethics rules and practice guidelines for a fee?
How about the specialty board that they pay dues to, and who promulgates manuals in the field of specialization - and can discipline, sanction, or remove them from the board certification?

I spend time in the food industry, and I think that is the better analogy.

To do business, with chains and other large customers, we were required to adhere to specific sanitation standards, regulated by third party sanitation companies. We just didn't send those companies a check, and then we were good to say we were compliant.

Rather, the third party companies would come out annually and do inspections of our facilities, documentation, procedures, and conduct interviews with our management and employees, to help insure we were being compliant.

I suppose anything could have happened when the inspectors weren't there, and the sanitation company shouldn't be responsible for that, but I do think it is a reasonable expectation that they would have some basis to believe that the practices they mandate were actually being followed before we could claim we were certified by them.

I kind of feel the same way about this case and PADI (or any other dive org). As a consumer when I see PADI, or SSI, or whatever, on a dive shop, I have a minimum expectation regarding the quality of services I expect to receive. If dive orgs really don't do anything (or next to nothing) to insure good practices are being followed, as a potential juror, I think they have an issue...

Just my .02

 

[Omisson]

I spend time in the food industry, and I think that is the better analogy.

To do business, with chains and other large customers, we were required to adhere to specific sanitation standards, regulated by third party sanitation companies. We just didn't send those companies a check, and then we were good to say we were compliant.

Rather, the third party companies would come out annually and do inspections of our facilities, documentation, procedures, and conduct interviews with our management and employees, to help insure we were being compliant.

I suppose anything could have happened when the inspectors weren't there, and the sanitation company shouldn't be responsible for that, but I do think it is a reasonable expectation that they would have some basis to believe that the practices they mandate were actually being followed before we could claim we were certified by them.

I kind of feel the same way about this case and PADI (or any other dive org). As a consumer when I see PADI, or SSI, or whatever, on a dive shop, I have a minimum expectation regarding the quality of services I expect to receive. If dive orgs really don't do anything (or next to nothing) to insure good practices are being followed, as a potential juror, I think they have an issue...

Just my .02

This is not even an Apples and oranges comparison- more like apples and industrial nuts & bolts.

First, a sanitation program doesn’t have third parties teach you sanitation practices first based on their standards, then give you an exam independent of that trainer, to check those procedures being taught. Also -none of those programs is also training you in sanitation practice in order for you to train other sanitary workers….

Second, food sanitary work is not a legally defined “hazardous activity” which scuba diving IS classified as- why? Because in scuba, even if you do EVERYTHING right you can still get hurt or killed. You assume an amount of risk diving…you acknowledge a higher level of required skills and procedures in life support equipment to engage in this activity….

Not a real analogy…sorry….

 

[Omisson]

In one of your more recent attacks, you cited the case of Tareq Saade, and you use his 2012 fatality to attack the shop through which he was being trained. For some reason you were unable to find the ScubaBoard thread about the incident. If you review it in its entirety, you will see that several people did all they could to blame the instructor for the death, but in the end the people who recovered the body, including the highly reputable Lamont (then the moderator of the DIR forum on ScubaBoard), concluded that absolutely nothing was done wrong. The dive had gone according to plan, and everything was within standards. The class was routinely headed back to shore. The student, a reasonably experienced diver taking an AOW class, suddenly and without warning bolted to the surface and died.

What would you have done differently on that dive?

I believe every instructor in every class has the potential for something like that to happen, so we with perfect safety records are all to some extent lucky not to being named as something akin to a murderer on ScubaBoard.

I was speaking to another industry guy today who has been on both the manufacture and agency sides - we discussed the implications of an adverse verdict against PADI based on this agency argument.

I pointed out, at least PADI has a degree of distance based on their corporate waivers and way of separating IDC (training) and IE (Certification). For NAUI there would be no such firewall, because the membership (ie the instructors) vote on the standards… as presented by and through the NFP Board… so if PADI has liability for training a “bad instructor” even though they violated the taught standards- NAUI is assuredly more exposed as their instructor are not mere agents but actually agency principals.

SDI-TDI is an even more complicated issue because they are for-profit like PADI, but conduct instructor training only through instructor trainers -with no direct agency (that is there is no final check like the PADI IE) on that training, like the system used by NAUI. So on the one hand, It gives them more distance on the agency side then say PADI….but much less protection from a oversight standards perspective when examined under a willful neglect perspective…. It’s a catch 22.

My point again, was the bigger picture issue, namely the litany of other groups that could be affected by a finding of an agency here…. Architects, engineers, doctors, lawyers…. All could have their certifications and board ratings at risk by such an expansive reading of agent liability.

 

[rsingler]

Since you @Omisson seem so intent on protecting PADI, how about this one question, which to me has been minimized in this whole discussion:
"Is there not 'agency' when an organization like PADI alleges oversight of dive shops by way of its "superb quality assurance program"? Yet, when the shop has had prior incidents, but continues in good standing, (i.e., has not been removed from a list of approved training facilities), is that not a problem re: 'agency'? Is it not 'agency' when you claim oversight as a sales pitch and as part of your business plan, yet you don't actually perform true oversight (i.e., restriction of advertising privileges as a PADI shop? ).

 

[Omisson]

Since you @Omisson seem so intent on protecting PADI, how about this one question, which to me has been minimized in this whole discussion:
"Is there not 'agency' when an organization like PADI alleges oversight of dive shops by way of its "superb quality assurance program", when the shop has had prior incidents, yet continues in good standing, (i.e., has not been removed from a list of approved training facilities). Is it not 'agency' when you claim oversight as a sales pitch and part of your business plan, yet don't actually perform true oversight (i.e., restriction of advertising privileges as a PADI shop? ).

You clearly don’t bother to use facts … let me help you.

SO, there are no “prior incidents” there was ONE….months RIGHT before THIS ONE…., AND PADI was not aware of it BEFORE the Mills death. It was discovered when the Mills death was brought to their attention.

By the way, the ONE prior incident was not reported, do You know why? Because the shop simply rented a tank to someone, who it turned out didn’t have a cert and wound up dying. Even local authorities said the shop had NOTHING TO DO with that “incident” since the shop didn’t instruct that person.

And so your whole fake news starting point is gone. So sorry.

Up next, Agency, at law, has nothing to do with “quality assurance” programs or advertising privileges- if that were the basis for agency claims liability would exist for just about every medical, real estate, architecture, engineering, and law board in the nation because of malpractice by professionals - here’s a hint….there has never been any such agency found… none….

Just because you THINK you know something doesn’t make it so…and WISHING for agency liability in this case, dooms every scuba agency and the industry as a whole- as well as many other professions with licensing and credentialing boards…because it wil create insurmountable liability for them.

‘’but hey, keep pretending it’s about me “protecting PADI”, I’m just stating facts…unfortunately, like so much of todays media driven hysterical nanny-state loving crybabies, the truth is objectionable and people are entitled to their own versions of facts and reality. It’s actually very sad….

 

[Omisson]

Since you @Omisson seem so intent on protecting PADI, how about this one question, which to me has been minimized in this whole discussion:
"Is there not 'agency' when an organization like PADI alleges oversight of dive shops by way of its "superb quality assurance program"? Yet, when the shop has had prior incidents, but continues in good standing, (i.e., has not been removed from a list of approved training facilities), is that not a problem re: 'agency'? Is it not 'agency' when you claim oversight as a sales pitch and as part of your business plan, yet you don't actually perform true oversight (i.e., restriction of advertising privileges as a PADI shop? ).

Yes PADI CLEARLY advertises that their members are agents…. Not….

 

[rsingler]

You seem a little overwrought here.
I was just asking a question.
And, yes! I DO acknowledge that finding 'agency' here may doom much of our currently unregulated industry. And I acknowledge that the waivers we all sign specifically state that PADI is not an agent. Yet how do they claim oversight? Even if in the case cited there were no prior incidents? PADI has no oversight program that might have prevented this. There is no ongoing inspection of the performance of instructors.
It's a Catch-22, I grant you. But that doesn't mean that PADI is innocent, given all its claims of excellence.
Yet, it's fair to say that instructors are underpaid for the risk, technicians are undertrained for their repairs, and fortunately, the deaths don't currently seem to exceed the median for other activities. So I guess we're okay.

Except that this death was completely avoidable, but for some basic adherence to standards.

I guess the real question is, where does the responsibility lie? I don't think PADI escapes responsibility, given all the claims it makes about "its instructors".

Maybe they escape legally, but not morally, in my world. But my world is not your world. Yet I'll keep mine, thank you very much.