Great pic and report! Source. Click for detail!
Have you seen this?
Is that the end of diving as we know it?
Methinks this is nothing to be concerned about.
This was not a diving accident where certified divers are generally believed to be responsible for their own actions, but instead a boating accident where the passengers have every right to expect the operator and the skipper to act responsibly - and if the verdict is that they did not, then it is only fair that they be held accountable.
And in diving?
Same-same. Operators that are found to be grossly negligent should not be allowed to hide behind liability releases - and at the same time, divers need to assume their own responsibility and not blame the operators for their own failures.
3 comments:
A fair judgement in the case of SA.
But, the lawyers, (the same ones Shakespeare suggested we kill in 12th Night) will use this judgement as a precedent.
It puts wannabes and up n' comers in the shark space on notice that they can no longer hide behind the flimsy indemnification document.
It might also open doors to mandatory insurance coverage beyond boats. Right now in the US and MX coverage extends to the water and ends there. After that cobbled together programs exhist.
If you trip and break a leg going to the cage, you can get coverage. If a shark unzips your cage like a prom dress because your operation and staff are sloppy miscreants...you are out of luck, you signed a form.
So, change will come. In what form only the next accident will tell.
I can say protracted lawsuits can kill operators even without settlements.
Good or bad this has opened a legal door.
The verdict is available online here: www.saflii.org.za/za/cases/ZAWCHC/2014/202.html
It's a very interesting read! Persist - you can skip the precedents and citing of other legal cases in the middle to get to the findings.
Wow - just wow.
Thanks Clare, much appreciated!
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