Posted by MHK on November 19, 2001 at 10:57:48:
In Reply to: Re: Technically, yes, but if it's your boat, it's your call.... posted by ChrisM on November 19, 2001 at 10:44:16:
The fact of the matter is that once you start setting ad hoc standards where does it end??? Similiar to a driver's license, once you are a certified diver there isn't a set of varying standards that are applied on a industry wide basis and as such you are asking for more problems once you start implementing on site judgements..
The fact of the matter is that what the courts will look to is *prudent* judgement and since it is assumed that a certified diver has gone through the appropriate training, based on the standards set up by a recognized agency, in the judgement of a certified instructor, it seems to me that a boat captain, or DM, need only look to the c-card.. That is why you see me kicking and screaming at watered down training because for the most part a large part of the training agencies, from a recreational standpoint, suck.. The couple that goes to Cayman for a week of vacation and comes back as certified diver's and then doesn't dive again for 5 years simply isn't qualified to be diving Farnsworth Bank, and the agencies fail to recognize that point of view..
From a legal standpoint the captain, or Dm, will be protected, or atleast should be absent any other gross neglience. However, from a moral and industry wide standpoint I wish that greater emphasis would be placed on REQUIRING advanced certifications for advanced dive sites.. I strongly believe that a more significant gray area is to the point of allowing a diver not certified in wreck diving access to a wreck.. I see an arguement that some ambulance chasing lawyer could advance in that, on the one had as a certified diver they should know better then to penetrate a wreck, but on the other hand I could see a lawyer advancing the arguement that it was *grossly* neglient to accept a fee to take a non wreck diver to a wreck site, since it was *reasonably foreseeable* that an injury could accur..
FTR, I'm NOT a lawyer, but I do spend a fair amount of time reviewing these issues...
Later