Suit filed in case of "Girl dead, boy injured at Glacier National Park
- Thread starter Jim Lapenta
- Start date
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I think the Second Amended Complaint paragraphs 152-153 contains alleged texts of e-mails indicating that the deceased was given the choice of a book or e-learning, and that the deceased responded by saying something like (in part) "I am free to meet whenever is convenient for you and do the payment and get the book." I could not find where the Second Amended Complaint indicated which choice the deceased finally made, nor could I find anywhere that the Second Amended Complaint indicated the deceased paid for the class (it does indicate others paid for their classes). Defendant Snow's answer to the Second Amended Complaint contains exhibits that arguably indicate the deceased had agreed to complete e-learning before the first day of class. I have not reviewed other materials -- so I don't know exactly what happened.
This is perhaps a small nit-picky item. However, when people make factual allegations, it might be worthwhile stating the source of those allegations. I have no connection to anyone in the case or any knowledge other than what is on the public record. I'm not sure if people here are posting from more complete knowledge than is publicly available, or extrapolating based on what is in the complaint. The Second Amended Complaint is (I think) the current version. These are allegations, some of which are denied by the defendants.
You may or may not be correct. Without doing a deep dive into that particular portion of the park, there's no way to know who has jurisdiction.
There are three types of jurisdiction on Federal Lands; exclusive, concurrent and proprietary.
Generally, federal buildings and things owned by the Federal Government are in the exclusive jurisdiction of the feds. There are large portions of what would be considered "federal land" that fall into either concurrent jurisdiction, or proprietary jurisdiction.
Concurrent places are places where both the state and the feds have jurisdiction to act. When the feds lease state lands, that would be an example of concurrent jurisdiction.
Proprietary jurisdiction are places that are federal solely because the feds are there. A federally leased office in a bank building would be an example.
It's pretty opaque for the average person - there's only one way I know to determine jurisdiction and that's via a telephone call to the agency's office of counsel.
My assumption is that you are correct, in this instance, but your blanket statement is incorrect.
If you look at the first page of the document it will tell you which version of the Complaint you are looking at. There are some differences between the first version of the complaint (posted at the very beginning of this thread) and the third version of the complaint (the Second Amended Complaint). The paragraph numbering is different between the versions. I'm not sure which ones have actually been posted in this thread -- I know that the links to some of the posted documents no longer work. I considered posting Defendant Snow's Answer to the Second Amended Complaint, but it contains exhibits at the end which have addresses and phone numbers on them, so I didn't post it (even though it is public record filed with the court). I do not have all of the filings in the case. They are available from the clerk of court for 25 cents per page.
Two examples of changed factual allegations between Plaintiff's allegations in the initial complaint and the Second Amended Complaint:
Kendra Potter and Seth Liston are no longer named as Defendants. The first version of the complaint states that Kendra Potter sold the drysuit to the deceased. The Second Amended Complaint states that a different person -- named as a new defendant -- sold the drysuit to the deceased. I can find no mention of Kendra Potter at all in the Second Amended Complaint.
The first version of the Complaint (paragraph 186) contains the following: "In addition, the Gull Dive Defendants did not provide Linnea with a weight belt. Instead, they simply placed lead weights into zippered pockets on Linnea’s BCD and in the thigh pockets on Linnea’s dry suit." The Second Amended Complaint (paragraph 257) contains this allegation: "While Nathan Dudden was assisting Linnea don her equipment, he placed 24 pounds of lead weights in the zippered pockets on the front of Linnea’s BCD, not in the separate, integrated weight pockets meant to hold the lead weights so they could be easily removed in the event of an emergency." Nathan Dudden is not a Defendant. The Second Amended Complaint (paragraph 314) contains this: "After Linnea’s body was transported to the Montana State Crime Lab, it was discovered that Linnea had an additional 20 pounds of lead weights zippered into the pockets of her dry suit." I could not find anywhere in the Second Amended Complaint where it states who put the weights in the dry suit pockets.
It is not uncommon for complaints to be amended during a lawsuit. Facts sometimes develop during the course of a lawsuit. A complaint contains allegations, which are often denied by defendants.
Do you have an idea which post the third version is? There are so many pages of posts, and while it is interesting to reread the early discussions, it is a bit time consuming.
Just skimmed through. Didn't find it (though did come across a few other things I forgot about). Though the reason I didn't see it is my use of the ignore button.
I think the intention of eLearning is the opposite of what you are claiming. If the student has completed the elearning, they have, at a minimum, clicked through all of the content, passed chapter knowledge reviews with a 100%, and passed the final exam with at least an 80%.
If I rely on text books and paper knowledge reviews, chances are pretty high the student will have skimmed the text, and we'll just have to go over all of their incorrect answers in class. During which they can still be completely clueless as to the correct answer, but still say they understand it.
If it is determined that the eLearning isn't adequate academic knowledge for the class, that should be back on the agency, not the instructor. If I am depending on in person lectures only, I may decide to skip a section of lecture ( ran out of time, forgot, or don't really understand it myself) and just tell them the correct answers for the test, that would be on me (and a standards violation). Or maybe I just drone on for hours and no one learns anything, but technically I covered it.
Requiring eLearning and in person lecture would be overly redundant for a lot of the material.
If the web-based training is good, that is true. I was amazed when I switched to SSI how little dive theory I had to teach. No one ever got below 80%. That freed me to have discussions on what they felt was important, what I felt was important as a reinforcement mechanism. And it allowed me to spend more time on dive planning which all agency material I've seen so far sucks.
We need to remember that it takes different ways to make it from short term to long term memory. I can't speak for everyone, but I always felt a need to load and dump when I was at university. If my next class didn't build upon my current class, then a lot of it was lost. I'm not recommending a Vince Lombardi style of "Gentlemen, this is a football." but when getting a new student, I personally feel it is important to go back past training to evaluate their knowledge and skills (takes hardly any time). Sure, the standards don't require it, and possibly the standards should.
I find checking in with students in between dives to get them to think about the dive theory, such as "Did you notice that when you started to drift up, the longer it took for you to react, the more gas you had to dump?" So they see how physics applies and how the same depth changes at different depths have different changes in buoyancy force.
In this case, while I wasn't there, I think it is not an unreasonable hypothesis that they were rushing to get the dives done. I'll be curious to read the testimony of the other students as to what dive briefing was given (if it hasn't been covered in the two additions. I haven't read (don't have on my laptop) the second amended complaint, only the first one).
OP
I was a YMCA Instructor before crossing over to SDI/TDI. I had 7 one hour lectures that we had to cover. All based on the Graver manual. When I crossed over, for the most part, that did not change. All e-learning did for the students who took it, was allow me to spend more time on gas management, rescue skills, etc. that we taught in the YMCA open water class.
Just because someone got 100% on the e-learning, it didn't mean I accepted they understood it. I would have them explain the material in their own words. Not parrot the book or e-learning material.
If they couldn't, we'd go over it until they could.
I had planned on teaching for a number more years. My work schedule changed and the 5-6 week class had to turn into 12 because of my rotating shifts. COVID also showed me that I was ok not teaching.
Also, it was getting harder to get students because they didn't want to spend 6 weeks in a class when they saw others offering one or two weekend certs.
And I see classes at my local quarry arriving at 9 and they rush through the 2 dives and are done and packed up by noon. Through just about every agency.
I didn't rush students through anything. I planned on being there for 6 hours minimum on day one to get two to three nice dives in on Saturday and 4-5 hours on Sunday for the last 2 dives. That's with two students. I see shops take in 8 with an instructor and two DM's. They rush through the skills one time, do a 10-15 minute swim, and are done.
I just got tired of trying to compete and frankly, teaching stopped being fun and became more of a job. That's when I knew it was time to get out.
Just because someone got 100% on the e-learning, it didn't mean I accepted they understood it. I would have them explain the material in their own words. Not parrot the book or e-learning material.
If they couldn't, we'd go over it until they could.
I had planned on teaching for a number more years. My work schedule changed and the 5-6 week class had to turn into 12 because of my rotating shifts. COVID also showed me that I was ok not teaching.
Also, it was getting harder to get students because they didn't want to spend 6 weeks in a class when they saw others offering one or two weekend certs.
And I see classes at my local quarry arriving at 9 and they rush through the 2 dives and are done and packed up by noon. Through just about every agency.
I didn't rush students through anything. I planned on being there for 6 hours minimum on day one to get two to three nice dives in on Saturday and 4-5 hours on Sunday for the last 2 dives. That's with two students. I see shops take in 8 with an instructor and two DM's. They rush through the skills one time, do a 10-15 minute swim, and are done.
I just got tired of trying to compete and frankly, teaching stopped being fun and became more of a job. That's when I knew it was time to get out.
pauldw
Contributor
If agencies like to do e-learning, OK. But why can’t I have a book for reference in the future?
