Lake Rawlings Death (May 27, 2012) Lawsuit

[HIGHwing]

Update: The plaintiff has filed a [civil] wrongful death claim for $5,000,000.00 + fees. Defense's motion to dismiss was denied. And we're off...

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

This thread has been split from a thread that began in the Accidents and Incidents forum. Marg, SB Senior Moderator

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[Jim Lapenta]

Link to the details of the suit?

 

[HIGHwing]

Yup. You'll need a PACER account for most of it though. Manchanda v. Hays Worldwide LLC et al :: Justia Dockets & Filings

 

[howswedeofme]

For anyone interested in following the lawsuit, you can at least see the docket entries for free at https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/4884847/Manchanda_v_Hays_Worldwide_LLC_et_al

 

[BDSC]

Will be interesting to see how this plays out but I suspect, in the end, they will settle out of court.

 

[howswedeofme]

Just as an FYI to people coming to the board for info, the lawsuit is against the instructor and the dive shop. PADI and Lake Rawlings are not named.

 

[Colliam7]

Will be interesting to see how this plays out but I suspect, in the end, they will settle out of court.

As with most litigations that is a likely scenario. The defendant's initial written response to the allegations raises some interesting issues, that come up on SB with some regularity a) who is responsible for what, in this case what was the responsibility of the diver's buddy (her husband). and what role did the diver's own behavior play, b) what actually caused her to drown, etc.

 

[boulderjohn]

I was recently involved with a lawsuit that made it pretty obvious why they usually end up in a settlement. Before the suit was filed, the attorneys made a best guess as to what would be a fair settlement, and a best guess as to what they could expect to get given their experience. They expected to win the suit--the only question was how much it would be considered to be worth. The initial response from the suit was a settlement offer for about what the attorneys thought they might get, which was a surprise. Obviously the party being sued expected to lose as well, and their estimates of what they might lose were evidently higher than ours. After a couple of back and forth offers, they made an offer that was about twice what our attorneys initially expected to get. Feeling that if we did not accept it we might go to trial, and not wanting to entrust things to the unpredictablity of a jury, we settled.

The jury is the wild card in the deck. You can never predict when some looney tune with great persuasive skills is going to take an otherwise reasonable group of your peers down a ridiculous path. If you have an offer you can live with, you will eventually prefer that to the roll of the jury trial dice.

 

[howswedeofme]

It's something like at least 97% of federal lawsuits settle before getting to trial. You're right, a big reason is the moving target with who you could get on a jury. With federal court (where this case is), it's a larger geographic area that they pull from than a state court so generally you can expect to seat a more competent (in that attorney's opinion) jury than in state court because of the larger pool to pull from. In poorer areas it's more dicey to get to a jury because they're more likely to award a greater amount than a jury in a more economically sound area (also not really an issue here with this one being in NOVA).

The other main consideration is cost of defense, i.e., defense settling for less than it would cost to have the lawyer try the case which I don't think will be a very strong consideration in this case given the amount of money the plaintiff is likely requesting. Generally, other pretty significant issues are potential longevity of the suit and the stress toll that would take and publicity of the suit affecting a business or personal reputation.

I'd be surprised if this settled before there's a ruling on Defendants' motion for summary judgment on their affirmative defense with the release/waiver, though.

 

[HIGHwing]

The jury is the wild card in the deck. You can never predict when some looney tune with great persuasive skills is going to take an otherwise reasonable group of your peers down a ridiculous path. If you have an offer you can live with, you will eventually prefer that to the roll of the jury trial dice.

That's all very logical, but it doesn't account for an angry plaintiff who's really not concerned about money.

We'll have to see how it plays out, but I tend to think a settlement relies on an insurance policy sufficient to cover the settlement demand. My guess is the insurance amount is not sufficient to satisfy the plaintiff at this juncture. So the lawyers let it play out, and if the plaintiff is angry enough, she could take it to trial just to hear the gavel fall.