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

[Omisson]

Nothing to add to the observations here.
However, I'm surprised at not a single comment re: PADI being named as a defendant.
Perhaps we're all so inured to them successfully dodging any responsibility via the waivers and lawyers on their staff. Perhaps the earlier death was too close to this one, and they can claim they were "working the issue."

Still, part of me says there is at least some merit to the complaint that if you're going to claim all this "oversight" as a component of your marketing, you ought to have some responsibility to actually make that info public. I'd rather see them defending against lawsuits filed by expelled members than lawsuits filed by families of deceased students.

I'll be closely watching this suit regarding this particular corporate defendant.

Likely because as EVERYONE has pointed out there were between 12-18 standards violations, plus several legal violations- so it would be unlikely to argue that absent a prior complaint about the specific instructor_ ANY AGENCY_ would suspect gross negligence on this scale and violation of law which are clearly the proximate causes of the death….not any of the standards set by the RSTC and PADI as related to an inappropriate unbriefed AOW, night, Drysuit, altitude, deep, near ice dive for cert - (without any prior certs in any, nor prerequisite training for…) of theses specialties… while illegally trespassing in a park which expressly prohibits diving without requisite permit and emergency action plan….

 

[Bob DBF]

plus several legal violations-

Please expand.

 

[Omisson]

Please expand.

The park requires a permit to dive.
The park requires an emergency action plan to dive- because it is not accessible nor are there communications capabilities on site.

neither of these were obtained. That constitutes a trespass.

 

[Omisson]

Again, and I don’t disagree with you, but (and I have no evidence either way) what if anyone else earned credit for that dive? If so, if it was a training dive for one, was it a training dive for all? You mentioned it back in the thread, but I don’t remember your conclusion. Would you personally allow a non-student participate in a training dive?

They could be mixing terms of art. There is a common law duty to properly INSTRUCT (which did not happen) and the dive being a training dive and therefore INSTRUCTIONAL.

FREQUENTLY Paralegals ( who are really the ones who DRAFT COMPLAINTS which are then reviewed and MARKED UP BY ATTORNEYS -aren’t as knowledgeable in jargon in a specialized field- like diving….

 

[Esprise Me]

They could be mixing terms of art. There is a common law duty to properly INSTRUCT (which did not happen) and the dive being a training dive and therefore INSTRUCTIONAL.

Wait, what? There's a common law duty to properly instruct someone even if you're not doing an instructional dive?

FREQUENTLY Paralegals ( who are really the ones who DRAFT COMPLAINTS which are then reviewed and MARKED UP BY ATTORNEYS -aren’t as knowledgeable in jargon in a specialized field- like diving….

It may be true that some attorneys delegate the drafting of complaints to paralegals and then fail to adequately edit their work. But that is not OK, and not what I would expect from this attorney given what I know.

 

[Omisson]

Wait, what? There's a common law duty to properly instruct someone even if you're not doing an instructional dive?

It may be true that some attorneys delegate the drafting of complaints to paralegals and then fail to adequately edit their work. But that is not OK, and not what I would expect from this attorney given what I know.

1) There is a DUTY when giving instruction to do so PROPERLY (meaning in the scope of training someone), within acceptable norms of an industry, and under conditions appropriate to the circumstances.

No one - except people bent on misconstruing the facts of these pleadings - could assert the instructor was not conducting an AOW class.

2) Some of the best attorneys I know screw up pleadings with things ranging from scrivener’ s errors to mixing up parties, to even copying data from the wrong case ….after staring at a pleading draft for the 1000th time it all gets hazy…

While Concannon is certainly well known in the dive industry legal community- it doesn’t mean his back office is the same as Kirkland Ellis or Latham Watkins. Many hyper specialty attorneys are near one man shows….

 

[lowwall]

...Some of the best attorneys I know screw up pleadings with things ranging from scribners errors….

Scrivener's error.

 

[Esprise Me]

1) There is a DUTY when giving instruction to do so PROPERLY (meaning in the scope of training someone), within acceptable norms of an industry, and under conditions appropriate to the circumstances.

No one - except people bent on misconstruing the facts of these pleadings - could assert the instructor was not conducting an AOW class.

So you're thinking when the complaint said this was a noninstructional dive for the victim, that means they're alleging that, although it was part of the course, the instructor didn't actually provide any instruction? Noninstructional = breach of duty to properly instruct?

I'm thinking it means that, although this dive was part of the AOW course, it wasn't the drysuit dive. It's not a matter of mixing up terms between common law duties and whether a dive is officially a training dive or a fun dive. It's saying that this wasn't a drysuit instructional dive; it was some other AOW course dive--maybe deep, navigation, etc.

147. Pursuant to the PADI RRA Membership Standards, the Gull Dive Defendants had a duty to ensure that Linnea was appropriately certified for noninstructional dives – in other words, that she was certified to use a dry suit while other students in the water during her Advanced Open Water course were taking a Dry Suit Diver Specialty Course.
[...]
193. Although Linnea was wearing a dry suit in the water, she was not qualified to take part in the dry suit diving portion of the training. Linnea was not a certified or qualified dry suit diver, she had no experience diving in deep water, and she was incapable of assessing risk or making an informed decision to take part in that dive. Despite this, the Gull Dive Defendants made no effort to ensure that Linnea was appropriately certified to participate in this dive, which was a noninstructional dive for her.

2) Some of the best attorneys I know screw up pleadings with things ranging from scrivener’ s errors to mixing up parties, to even copying data from the wrong case ….after staring at a pleading draft for the 1000th time it all gets hazy…

While Concannon is certainly well known in the dive industry legal community- it doesn’t mean his back office is the same as Kirkland Ellis or Latham Watkins. Many hyper specialty attorneys are near one man shows….

What does any of that have to do with your earlier assertion about paralegals being the ones to draft pleadings and making mistakes due to lack of knowledge?

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I know this event has been posted and discussed here and elsewhere since it was released two weeks ago. In this video, I’ve compiled the news reports, legal filing, and input from the family’s representative. The family has established a Linnea Foundation for those who wish to support:
Support The Linnea Foundation

On Nov of 2020, and 18-year-old Linnea Rose Mills dive on a freshwater dive at Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park, Montana. A $12M filed by the family alleges that the Gull Dive Center was negligent in not providing Linnea with proper dry suit instruction, and inflator hose, proper briefing, and supervision, and she was fatally overweighed with non-ditchable weight. The suit alleges that the end result was that Linnea was fatally squeezed at depth and unable to breathe nor return to the surface due to suit restrictions and being overweight beyond the capacity of the BC. The legal filing and other news reports also allege that there are other questions regarding the instructor's ability to teach drysuit, lack of emergency procedures, and the PADI teaching status of the Gull dive center. PADI is also named in the drysuit.

You mention in the video that you didn't know if the instructor was certified to teach the course. She had enough dives to self-certify, that I know for a fact. Whether she worked with a CD to train her to teach the course, I don't know. But the self-certification route was there. Not sure if the plaintfill will go after PADI for this.

 

[boulderjohn]

John - what was the outcome in that suit-I never saw a final settlement or verdict?

I never heard.