Liability form question

[The Chairman]

Dude, facts just cloud the issue!

 

[Wookie]

My statement was based on taking marine lawyers out on dive charters. The same two repeat customers for years. They had been marine lawyers for many years. One was a judge in No. La.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

I'm going to assume No. La. is Northern Louisiana? Louisiana practices a different law than does the rest of the country? Maybe that's why waivers aren't worth anything there?

 

[Ste Wart]

As a brief half hijack. The shop I was working for this summer was a MESS (that is putting it extremely politely). I was out on a charter as a DM and luckily this situation didn't happen to my group, but I did suffer some of the effects. Basically what happened what our shop never ever asked for c-cards for anyone other than the primary on the reservation. So we would get the dive boat list and we would have 8 divers listed as John Smith aow because John Smith made the reservation. In addition we would get an absolute bollocking if we asked anyone anything other than their name as that was a waste of everyones time and not our job etc etc. So basically we learned how to creatively figure out what level our divers were. Asking them about where they've dived, how long ago, possibly throwing in what level diver they are etc. Well basically one day we have 2 boats that are going out with a total of 40 divers and 6 staff. They're broken up into groups of 10 originally with 1 instructor per group and 2 groups have DMs. Well until we found out that we had a charter of 7 intro divers that did their DSD somewhere else and no one had bothered to ask for c-cards since the person who made the reservation was an OW. (Please note I don't agree with how this was handled and quit shortly after). But the owner happened to be captaining the boats and made the decision to chuck them all in the water with 1 instructor per 2 intro divers and then divided the 22 other divers between the 2 DMs.

What I walked away from that situation with was that I will never ever take a diver diving that I haven;t seen their paperwork myself. And by paperwork I mean c-cards and waivers. Just because I want to do my job right doesn't mean that the people in the office aren't going to miss something or half-ass it.

Sad fact is, this sort of set-up isn't even unusual.

 

[sealark]

I'm going to assume No. La. is Northern Louisiana? Louisiana practices a different law than does the rest of the country? Maybe that's why waivers aren't worth anything there?

New Orleans is what I ment and Marine law is Marine law. Hey, I'm just telling you what I was told and is surely makes a lot of sense at least to my small pea brain. How can a piece of paper protect anyone from there wrongful actions that result from negligence? Luckily I ran charters for 20 years and not one accident and never had a release or ever thought about one.

 

[Kitty_Kat]

I don't think the OP is wrong to want to see the paperwork before allowing divers to go out with him! I don't work in a tropical/touristy location (and therefore have fewer hoards of eager divers coming through) but most operations around here take paperwork pretty seriously. Our boat doesn't leave the dock until everyone has shown their C-card and signed a waiver right in front of us. If they provide a card that doesn't have a picture (many tec and older cards) our captain usually asks to see a drivers license. Maybe this process is overkill, but we have never had anyone complain. It doesn't take extra time (divers are setting up their kits while this is going on) and with many of our local dives having advanced/technical components in rough conditions, these extra precautions would be important in the case of an incident.

Unfortunately most dive accidents seem to come from diver error/miscalculation/inexperience, but that's usually not a satisfying answer for the family/friends of the victim. They want someone to blame and that person is likely going to be the dive op who was a part of the trip. It doesn't matter if there was any negligence on the part of the dive op or not. That may sound extremely pessimistic, but I have recently seen this scenario play out with some local dive ops in my area. I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to cover your butt from this.

The US is a litigation-happy place. I don't know where the OP is located, but in the scenario of moving from the shop to the boat with many divers, how difficult would it be for an eager and confident non-diver to switch places with a certified friend? I probably would have tried it if I had ever gotten the chance when I was younger... I don't think it's unreasonable at all to want to see a waiver, c-card, and diver together.

 

[boulderjohn]

As it has been explained to me, the liability waiver works great for almost all the cases that arise. Without them, the op could be sued under almost all circumstances. They generally work because dive ops are pretty much never grossly negligent. As long as the dive op was acting reasonably within standard procedures, the liability waiver will be a good defense.

On the other hand, if the dive op is grossly negligent, then it will not help. There was a recent case in California (and I don't know how it turned out) in which a dive op had a working DM who was not current in his certification and thus not insured. He attempted to assist a diver and in so doing did the opposite of even basic OW training says to do, thus causing the death of that diver. I would think a waiver would not help in that case. In the most famous case in which a DM was successfully sued, the DM's conduct was absolutely outrageous from the beginning to the end of the dive, culminating in refusing to give air to an OOA diver at depth.

 

[Wookie]

There was a recent case in California (and I don't know how it turned out) in which a dive op had a working DM who was not current in his certification and this not insured. He attempted to assist a diver and in so doing did the opposite of even basic OW training says to do, thus causing the death of that diver.

Every insured party took it to the limit on that one.

 

[RTee]

Long answer to a short question.

My experience with Dive operators has been as follow:

1) as part of a diving club, a annual waiver will be signed and handed-in in order to be granted a membership to said club (with proof of certification);
2) for local charters, a waiver pertaining to a specific charter will be signed once a year and this will normally be done on the vessel itself and C-card will normally also be requested every time you will show up for diving unless the crew is utterly familiar with you (unless charters are part of a dive ops in which case refer to subpara 3); and
3) for diving out of exotic locations (my experience is limited to FL and Caribbean), a waiver will be signed when you first report to the dive shop/op (or liveaboard) at which time you will also need to show proof of certification. This is done at the main/front desk with either the manager or one of the staff. From then on, the only piece of paper that will transit to and from said office to the boat crew on any given day is the manifest, that's it. This system is based on everybody having a very specific job to do as part of the overall process.

For local charters, it is common to see a single reservation made under one name for X amount of divers. For these, you can expect having to sign a waiver on the boat (unless one has been previously signed) as well as showing your C-cards when you report to the boat.