Lost diver gets $1.68 million in damages

Daniel Carlock's lawsuit against Sundivers and Ocean Adventures of LA came to an end with the jury awarding him $1.68 million. That's a pretty high award for being lost at sea for 5 hours.

The "Driftin' Dan" case has been fodder for LA divers for years, well just a few weeks. I do think the ops in question deserve to be sanctioned, especially the DM and cruise director, for forgetting a diver at a dive site and not notice for 3 hours. With a big award like that, it's likely insurance for these businesses will rise and so will our costs for diving.

Then again, it's nice that one can get restitution for mistakes made by the operators. I wonder how the GBR ops managed to escape massive fines and damages due leaving multiple divers at sea over the years?

Daniel Carlock wins case in LA court.

Quite pathetic really. Obviously the operator is at fault, but such an award. ???????

Stew

Ridiculous The amount!!! One wild guess of what damages may be in India...............

Ridiculous The amount!!! One wild guess of what damages may be in India...............

A single slice of chapati roti... with no dipping sauce?

A single slice of chapati roti... with no dipping sauce?

Developed skin cancer???? And has PTSD, but was off diving in Thailand when they tried to contact him. Perhaps he's working on his exposure therapy regime.

Still he was rescued by boy scouts, ie luck, and marking him as having done the second dive could have got him killed.

Does seem a lot, but also sounds like multiple errors, and it could have been a lot worse. Im not keen on excusing boats that miscount once, let alone twice in a row.

Otara

Daniel Carlock's lawsuit against Sundivers and Ocean Adventures of LA came to an end with the jury awarding him $1.68 million. That's a pretty high award for being lost at sea for 5 hours.

The "Driftin' Dan" case has been fodder for LA divers for years, well just a few weeks. I do think the ops in question deserve to be sanctioned, especially the DM and cruise director, for forgetting a diver at a dive site and not notice for 3 hours. With a big award like that, it's likely insurance for these businesses will rise and so will our costs for diving.

Then again, it's nice that one can get restitution for mistakes made by the operators. I wonder how the GBR ops managed to escape massive fines and damages due leaving multiple divers at sea over the years?

 

Daniel Carlock wins case in LA court.

Before this occurred, counting divers on local trips was quite hit and miss; some folks did it well, others didn't. This incident has changed two things locally. The first is that boats are much more diligent in checking divers in and out. The second is related to dive releases. The judge didn't allow that getting left at a site was a "regular danger" of going diving. The original award was $2M but got trimmed since he was a bit at fault.

I think the award is ludicrous but it will be the insurance companies that have to pay and local dive rates will undoubtedly have to go up. I am not sure that I buy the PTSD story, but the skin cancer story is completely without merit even if it were sunny. He had on a drysuit, hood, gloves and mask. Where did he get the skin cancer? and from a single day's exposure. Surely the jury couldn't have believed that story. I wonder did the insurance guys have medical experts?

In any case, he was lucky and diving safety here has marginally improved.

Bill

I wouldn't get too upset about the amount of the award in this case. Generally, the media always make sensational headlines about the amount of awards and leaves it at that. The general public then assumes the plaintiff walks away with all that money free and clear.

Actually, it is only at this point that the real bargaining between plaintiff and insurance company starts. You still have to get the insurance company to pay up. Most likely the insurance company will make a reduced offer to to plaintiff and say "Take this reduced amount now and walk away, or take us back to court to enforce the terms of the award at your cost". In essence, the emphasis has now shift from the insurance company trying to minimize the amount of the initial award, to that of the plaintiff trying to protect as much of the award from being eaten up in additional legal and court costs as possible. The insurance company will simply look at this a cost cutting exercise. Court costs can be assigned to whomever the judge pleases and for whatever reasons the judge may presume, at least up here in Canada, so it really does become a bit of a minefield for the plaintiff at this point. It could be some time before the victim sees any money if these negotiations become protracted and lets not forget interest on the award is not automatically granted either, so inflation starts to set in to reduce the buying power of the award even further.

Just my 2 cents based on my limited experiences with insurance companies and court systems.

Think this is all getting out of hand. Sure the improvement in dive safety is always welcomed, and lets face it counting in and out is a pretty basic procedure.

But the downside is we get a dive industry that is geared towards the lowest common denominator, which in real terms impinges on our ability to take responsibility for our own safety and do the dive that we want to do.

The sad thing I, feel is that I am sure this gentleman doesn t feel his experience was worth the payout, he was just taking a punt on getting some easy money on the back of a silver tongues lawyers advice. And the only real winner at the end of the day are lawyers.

I wonder how the GBR ops managed to escape massive fines and damages due leaving multiple divers at sea over the years?

Again Australia is very litigation heavy. I remember an operator I used to work for on the GBR, getting taken to court over and over again. Other memorable lawsuits included people that had cut their hands on the oyster covered up line, but this was my favorite. The liveaboard had anchored at a permanent mooring on the reef in set up for a dive. One couple had completely ignored the briefing and swam with the current for the best part of an hour before surfacing, surprising no where near the vessel. They where pick up down current by the liveaboard vessel some 5 hours later, but the operator still ended up in court.

This sort of event reflects poorly on training agencies and divers and essentially restricts the ability of the majority of competent thinking divers to do the sort of diving they want to do. (Try doing a shallow reef dive with a 80min bottom time on the GBR now a days).

e