Specialties required? Dive club dilemma

[iluvtheocean]

What would be the difference between a dive club and a scuba meetup group? although one thing i think is that the meetup group has less liability depending on the situation.

 

[Hawkwood]

So you want to be the first scuba police? My club uses standard (generic) waivers for divers at club sponsered events. Basically "I understand if I kill myself you ain't responsible". More than that you are way overstepping.

Yup, that is all that our large local dive club requires.

They have no dive shop "sponsorship".

 

[nimoh]

So what if they sue the club? Scuba clubs don't have any money anyway.

If the lawsuit were to extend to individuals in the club, then the club is irrelevant anyway and the same thing would happen under a buddy diving relationship. The shop can protect themselves by not being involved in club business and by not organizing club dives.

 

[doctormike]

What would be the difference between a dive club and a scuba meetup group? although one thing i think is that the meetup group has less liability depending on the situation.

The liability comes from organizing, promoting and coordinating diving.

A scuba meetup group is just one type of dive club that uses that specific online system to coordinate activities, so no difference in terms of liability.

 

[PsyWulf]

Lol,if i'm a certified instructor and you come to me with such crap i'd tell you to go fly,since i'm only MSD though i'd still tell you to go fly with a rule like that. Sounds like somebody wants sales

 

[doctormike]

So what if they sue the club? Scuba clubs don't have any money anyway.

If the lawsuit were to extend to individuals in the club, then the club is irrelevant anyway and the same thing would happen under a buddy diving relationship. The shop can protect themselves by not being involved in club business and by not organizing club dives.

I'm not an attorney, but our legal advisor did say that the possibility of individual liability cannot be completely discounted, at least for the leadership. The theory is that the organization promoted the activity and facilitated a dive for someone who might not be at an appropriate level.

Also, clubs often do have some assets (ours does), not to mention the colossal headache of getting in any way involved with litigation. Anything that can slow or stop that process (like waivers and not vetting divers) is a good thing.

---------- Post added July 2nd, 2014 at 09:26 AM ----------

The shop that sponsors us has some concerns of liability.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the shop that sponsors us".

If the shop is running a dive outing (boat, shore, quarry, whatever), then they are the dive pros with professional liability insurance, and it's their headache, and up to them to require whatever they see fit. If you are using the club infrastructure to encourage your members to sign up for an event run by a dive shop (e.g. the mailing list, or promotion at a meeting), that should be fine as long as you make it clear in your documentation that the shop decides the requirements for this dive, and who can go on any given trip.

I would still get club waivers, though...

 

[nimoh]

I'm not an attorney, but our legal advisor did say that the possibility of individual liability cannot be completely discounted, at least for the leadership. The theory is that the organization promoted the activity and facilitated a dive for someone who might not be at an appropriate level.

Also, clubs often do have some assets (ours does), not to mention the colossal headache of getting in any way involved with litigation. Anything that can slow or stop that process (like waivers and not vetting divers) is a good thing.

You're right of course. I shouldn't have worded my post indicating that I was speaking for all scuba clubs, mine has about $50

 

[doctormike]

You're right of course. I shouldn't have worded my post indicating that I was speaking for all scuba clubs, mine has about $50

We have a bit more than that... but I actually heard of one club that owned a lake house! Nice...

 

[sheeper]

our club is a social club. We "organize" the logistics for a trip but the dive boat/shop runs the dive. we make it clear that members dive at their own risk and must dive in accordance with their personal training and are responsible for their own equipment needs. We also state that the club has no responsibility or liability for any diver.
We did not start the club to be Scuba Police but to get people together to have fun diving.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

One thing that comes up constantly, is that a dive club should never be in the business of vetting divers skills and abilities. This apparently vastly increases the club's liability, since you are in a sense certifying some divers to do some dives and not others.

This. Let's say you institute the 'if you want to dive your own drysuit on a club dive, you have to show us your drysuit c-card' policy, and you start enforcing it. The next dive, someone gets separated from their buddy and while missing apparently drowns. They had a camera with them, they didn't have a c-card associated with camera use, and you didn't ask them for a c-card for it before you let them in the water with the camera.

You've started policing who can dive what gear and by doing so you've held yourself out to clubmembers as able to do so competently--but apparently you can't even get that right, because here's a dead cameraman without a PADI underwater photog c-card. That dead guy, so the story will go, knew you asked people for c-cards if it was necessary to safely dive a piece of gear and since you didn't need one for him to use the camera, he was able to assume (wrongly) that using a camera on a dive presented no potential risks about which he should worry. Now I sue you and use your own silly policy against you as proof you had a duty in the first place. Dumb (like the hypothetical diver who thinks the way I just described), but that's life.

Now, if you're renting them the drysuit, I think the reason for demanding a c-card changes--as does whether you're best served in reducing liability by a 'we're not here to police you' approach. But as a general rule, people should think really hard before putting "for your own safety" after some stupid policy by which they expect others to govern themselves.