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

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Not out of line at all. But does that expectation rise to negligent liability? If a dive shop can be sued for providing gear that failed on a dive resulting in a fatality, are you safe selling your gear to a stranger?

I just don't find the seller negligent at all. As an instructor, it is part of my duty to ensure that my student has the appropriate skill level and equipment for the course. Now all my courses begin with a conversation on weighting. My preference is for a 1:1 fun dive to evaluate skills for someone I don't know. I do think that shops should provide proper equipment. Now there is always a risk of equipment failure, which is why maintenance records are important. Anything can fail at anytime. If a dive shop or independent instructor provides gear that they never maintain (the only way to disprove is to have maintenance records) that is different than regularly scheduled maintenance. For a failure for equipment that is regularly maintained, that's just bad luck. However the instructor and assistants are supposed to have the training to address that.

But getting back to the weight of the student, didn't DAN state in their 2016 annual report that they'd like to see improved buoyancy control and proper weighting in the list of top ten changes they'd like to see?

 

[The Ruttmeister]

My understanding is that if you don’t include someone and it later comes out that they were involved you are SOL. Or if the actual guilty parties spin stories that someone not being sued is really at fault and the jury buys it you are SOL. And the lawyers job is to collect money for their client, so people can pay to get out of the judgement it they are peripheral or willing to pay a lot.

IANAL. But for this reason in California is normal for lawsuits to include 20-30 John Does. Just in case they need to add someone they find in discovery might be liable.

No one will open any shop selling anything if they are responsible for the buyer subsequent usage of the item bought from them eg. car, gun etc etc.

Oh you sweet summer child.
Please read about product liability, UL, CE, TUV etc etc etc...

If you sell someone something you have a duty of care. You don't sell chainsaws to children, you don't sell cars to people without a driving license. If you are exchanging goods for money you have a liability to ensure the goods are serviceable and that providing them doesn't endanger the buyer.
How far that goes depends on the courts. But gun shops get sued for selling guns to crazy people. Retailers get sued for all sorts of things. Private sellers only don't get sued much because they don't normally have enough money to be worth suing.

That said, I'm sure they are just including that guy because they are going to include anyone and everyone. He'll get a lawyer to write a letter or two and get removed from the suit. Unless they find that he knew the instructor was incompetent and had disclosed to him that they were going to do wildly unsafe things that any reasonable person would think to be wildly unsafe (stranger things have happened). Which seems unlikely. And even then his liability is much smaller than the instructor.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

you don't sell cars to people without a driving license.

Have you ever sold a car to someone? Did you seriously ask to see their drivers license? All I ask for is cold, hard cash.

 

[Centrals]

IANAL. But for this reason in California is normal for lawsuits to include 20-30 John Does. Just in case they need to add someone they find in discovery might be liable.



Oh you sweet summer child.
Please read about product liability, UL, CE, TUV etc etc etc...

If you sell someone something you have a duty of care. You don't sell chainsaws to children, you don't sell cars to people without a driving license. If you are exchanging goods for money you have a liability to ensure the goods are serviceable and that providing them doesn't endanger the buyer.
How far that goes depends on the courts. But gun shops get sued for selling guns to crazy people. Retailers get sued for all sorts of things. Private sellers only don't get sued much because they don't normally have enough money to be worth suing.

That said, I'm sure they are just including that guy because they are going to include anyone and everyone. He'll get a lawyer to write a letter or two and get removed from the suit. Unless they find that he knew the instructor was incompetent and had disclosed to him that they were going to do wildly unsafe things that any reasonable person would think to be wildly unsafe (stranger things have happened). Which seems unlikely. And even then his liability is much smaller than the instructor.

Endanger the buyer! It is the buyer who used it to endanger others. That is the difference.
If someone used a scarf to strangle someone would the manufacturer be sued for that?
Product liability? What is that for high heel shoes, shoes lace, scarf, stocking etc etc?

You American just like filing lawsuit to feed the parasite(lawyer).

Sweet summer child! You must be pretty ancient.

 

[The Ruttmeister]

Have you ever sold a car to someone? Did you seriously ask to see their drivers license? All I ask for is cold, hard cash.

Ahem.

Private sellers only don't get sued much because they don't normally have enough money to be worth suing.

As a private seller, no I didn't ask. But then he drove a tow-truck and had to tow the car away.

When I worked at a Car Dealership that actually had enough money to get sued. We required a copy of your license, proof of insurance and that the car was taxed. And I told at least 1 customer, if you don't want to provide those, you are welcome to come pick up the car on a transporter of some kind. But we can't let you drive it off the lot if we know you are committing a crime in the process.

If I was worth millions of dollars, no way would I be selling a car privately, that is going through a dealer that has insurance and insulates me.

...I don't know how easy it is to pierce the corporate veil in that state's courts, ...

I flipped to the end and it sounds like the owners were treating their corporation very loosely, including commingling the accounts.

Again IANAL... But from what I have absorbed from actual lawyers, commingling your accounts is the kind of the thing the lawyers tell you very sternly not to do. At a minimum it means you end up paying your lawyer a bunch more money.

Endanger the buyer! It is the buyer who used it to endanger others. That is the difference.
If someone used a scarf to strangle someone would the manufacturer be sued for that?
Product liability? What is that for high heel shoes, shoes lace, scarf, stocking etc etc?

You American just like filing lawsuit to feed the parasite(lawyer).

Sweet summer child! You must be pretty ancient.

Just a little jaded.

And I'm not an American.

Things have warning labels for a reason.
There's a rebreather out there with the warning 'This equipment will kill you without warning.'

It starts with it being illegal to make Beer with things that are not Barley, hops and water (and yeast!). Today its reached superman costumes with the warning 'this costume doesn't make you able to fly'.
We can all, and will, argue that its silly. But arguing doesn't change that fact that it is the world we live in.
None of which helps with the real business of this thread. So I apologize to everyone looking for signal not noise.

I'm certainly less interested in diving remote lakes in northern CA now... Although I like to think I'm aware enough of my own limits to thumb a dive long before... well. You know.

44Lbs? Yikes.
I'm 6' and 200Lbs and I'm carrying a lot less than that in a 7mm wetsuit. I think I would struggle to swim up that much under the best of conditions.

 

[Bob DBF]

Have you ever sold a car to someone? Did you seriously ask to see their drivers license? All I ask for is cold, hard cash.

Yeah, but it was to fill out the notice of transfer to the DMV that didn't leave me responsible for a vehicle I didn't own.

Of course I'm in Ca where lawsuits are a way of life.

 

[Centrals]

Just a little jaded.

And I'm not an American.

Things have warning labels for a reason.
There's a rebreather out there with the warning 'This equipment will kill you without warning.'

Warning on dive computer on decompression sickness. Yes.
I have not seen any warning on shoes lace,scarf etc etc.

Unless you were born in late 40s otherwise...

 

[KevinNM]

Protecting the brand and the D in PADI that stands for dollars, not divers. I’m being sarcastic. When I hear about accidents with PADI instructors, cover up seems to be the name of the game. I’m sure there have been issues with other agencies, but I’ve never heard of them like I do the PADI ones.

I suspect most of it is that PADI is much larger than every other agency combined. But take IANTD. An interning cave instructor drowned a student in a cave in Italy during a class in Italy and he was awarded cave instructor cert by the monitoring instructor and IANTD. I think the Cave CCR instructor who drowned a student in Blue Grotto was an IANTD instructor too but not so sure on that one. But I know a very sharp IANTD instructor too.

Very few agencies do effective instructor QC and most don’t seem to try.

 

[Esprise Me]

I suspect most of it is that PADI is much larger than every other agency combined. But take IANTD. An interning cave instructor drowned a student in a cave in Italy during a class in Italy and he was awarded cave instructor cert by the monitoring instructor and IANTD. I think the Cave CCR instructor who drowned a student in Blue Grotto was an IANTD instructor too but not so sure on that one. But I know a very sharp IANTD instructor too.

Very few agencies do effective instructor QC and most don’t seem to try.

Wait a minute... there's a "D" in IANTD too! It's all starting to make sense!

 

[Seaweed Doc]

Yikes! What a cluster. I summarized the details to my non-diving (but skilled boat-tending) wife. She responded with "did somebody have a hit out on the poor kid?"

It's clear some folks don't understand how PADI instructors work. Unlike some agencies, PADI instructors may be completely independent, a contractor with a shop that itself may or may not have a tie to PADI, or an employee of such a shop. If the LDS I use for student gear rentals got booted out of PADI, the only thing that has to change for me is that I'd personally sell books to students and personally pay PADI for c-cards. Or put another way, I could use the NAUI shop down the road for support while issuing PADI cards.

(Note all of this is could, not would or should.)

That said, if the dive shop here is buying e-learning directly from PADI, I presume the shop itself is "active status" with PADI. They might get around that by having individual instructors buy the PADI products, I suppose.