Litigation

[edid 0]

I’m putting this poll (I hope it works; I’ve just l copied how to do it from the FAQ section) in this “Safety and Training” section because it doesn’t really have it’s own category and I felt it was more serious than the ‘General Skydiving Talkback ‘section would assume.
I hope everyone will answer honestly so a true gauge of sentiment may be gleaned from our collective ranks.

During a jump something happened resulting in you sustaining some serous injuries. You are told by lawyers that they could argue a case of negligence for you. Do you...
Sue the person, DZ or governing body for all the money you can get.
Sue the person, DZ or governing body only for your medical expenses and/or loss of earnings.
Realise that, despite all care and responsibility taken, gear and humans are sometimes fallible and you accept the injury as part and parcel of the adventure that you chose and signed up for being aware there are risks.

Just interested to see what the current attitude out there is. Thanks

[BenW 0]

I think it really comes down to what the situation is.
If someone is negligent in their job, and this can be proved, then maybe there is a case for action. But if it is an accidental situation, then, you want to jump - you accept the risk.
Elaborate on the situation a little more.
Ben

[SkydiveMonkey 0]

All I have to say is that shit happens
I skydive, therefore I am

• Quote

[jfields 0]

I'm with Ben. I can think of a whole lot of situations where I'd just suck up and deal with it. But there is a limit to what risks you accept as your own part of skydiving.
As a purely hypothetical, far-fetched example:
Your jump plane pilot flies the first load of the day still drunk and crashes the plane. You were aboard and are left a quadripelegic. An extreme example, but is that one where someone should be forced to take some responsibility? I think so.
In general, I agree that we accept a certain amount of risk of accidents by skydiving. There isn't any sense in trying to punish a fellow jumper or pilot for something that happened when they tried to do their honest best. But for avoidable, careless crap that hurts people, I think they ought to be held responsible, if nothing else, for letting their fellow skydivers down so badly.
Justin
My Homepage

[freefalle 0]

I believe I agree with the previous to post. We all take a certain amount to risk in our lives, in almost anything we do. We must assume our on responsiblity for our actions. However, that being said we also assume the professionals at any DZ we jump at know what they are doing and do their job with the necessary amount of due care. I do not think it is fair for anyone to expect a skydiver who is injured as a result of someone elses actions not to seek legal recourse. Bills still need to be paid and families need to be cared for.

[riggerrob 561]

The flip side of this argument is represented by the manufacturer and rigger who were sued out of business earlier this year all because of a loose grommet on a brand new container.
Granted it was an error of ommission.
Granted someone died.
However, the deceased knew the risks he was taking because he had thousands of jumps. His widow, who also had thousands of jumps, launched the lawsuit.
The only people who gained were the lawyers.
The downside is that some people are now austricised from the skydiving community.
I will never work on parachutes owned by the widow or anyone who advised them to sue.

[mountainman 0]

Riggerrob...what company was that whom got sued out of buisness?
-------------
JumpinDuo.com...news, guestbook, and links.

[quade 3]

Quote

The flip side of this argument is represented by the manufacturer and rigger who were sued out of business earlier this year all because of a loose grommet on a brand new container.

There was a -bit- more to it than that.
If it had been a single instance . . . if the situation that caused the poor grommet seating had been corrected -after- the accident . . . things may not have gone as far as they did.
This appears to be a -very- unusual situation, a -very- sensitive case and why it was felt by a number of people that it had to be handled the way it was. It may not have seemed like it at the time and some people may not believe it now, but most of the people involved actually were looking out for the better interests of the sport as a whole.
At least, that's my understanding of the case as told to me by a fairly high ranking and well respected USPA official at the time.
Paul
http://futurecam.com/skydive.html

[jfields 0]

Quote

what company was that whom got sued out of buisness?

Fliteline systems, (former) makers of the Reflex container.
Justin
My Homepage

[Spectrejumper 0]

>I'm with Ben. I can think of a whole lot of situations where I'd just suck up and deal with it. But there is a limit to >what risks you accept as your own part of skydiving.
>
>As a purely hypothetical, far-fetched example:
>
>Your jump plane pilot flies the first load of the day still drunk and crashes the plane. You were aboard and are left a >quadripelegic. An extreme example, but is that one where someone should be forced to take some responsibility? >I think so.
>
>In general, I agree that we accept a certain amount of risk of accidents by skydiving. There isn't any sense in >trying to punish a fellow jumper or pilot for something that happened when they tried to do their honest best. But >for avoidable, careless crap that hurts people, I think they ought to be held responsible, if nothing else, for letting >their fellow skydivers down so badly.
Well, I guess in your far fetched example I would agree that a lawsuit would be warranted. Then you get into a huge grey area when you talk about people "doing their best" and "avoidable, careless crap". Many people outside the sport would argue that everything we do is avoidable, careless crap. As most waivers will tell you, negligence is defined as failure to exercise due care. The waivers also usually say that by even agreeing to skydive you are negligent. The only way I think a lawsuit would be warranted is in a case of malicious intent, which I think is virtually non-existant in skydiving.
One of the biggest problems in the US legal system, and US society in general, is that nobody wants to take responsibility for their own choices and actions. Where else can you put a cup of hot coffee between your legs, burn yourself, then sue the company that sold you the coffee because they didn't tell you it was hot??? This of course is just one of countless examples of the frivolous lawsuits filed daily here in the US.
As far as the other poster who talks about "Bills still need to be paid and families need to be cared for.", I think that is part of the risk we accept when we decide to skydive.
Mike D-23312
"It's such a shame to spend your time away like this...existing." JMH

[lummy 4]

Just a side note about Malicious intent.
There was a guy in Europe (NL, I beleive) that purposely cut his girlfriends cutaway cables, and he made sure she had a mal. I can't remember how they figured it out, but he was arrested.
Just pointing out that even WE as skydivers are not immune from the sickos of this world

[Jimbo 0]

Quote

There was a guy in Europe (NL, I beleive) that purposely cut his girlfriends cutaway cables, and he made sure she had a mal.

I remember seeing that in some bad movie that centered around skdiving. I can't remember the name. I never would have expected someone to do that in real life. There are some sick people out there...
-
Jim

[Spectrejumper 0]

That incident happened in Germany as I recall. The guy was convicted and sent to jail, a life sentence I believe.
Mike D-23312
"It's such a shame to spend your time away like this...existing." JMH

[jfields 0]

Mike,
I agree with you about the shades of grey. One extreme is the type of neglect I illustrated in my admittedly stupid example. The other extreme could be when someone accidently cuts you off under canopy and you have a little bit of a rough landing. Where in between is it deserving of litigation?
Each person has a threshold of where they see people's actions getting serious enough to merit legal action. Some people are sue-happy and do so at the least provocation. Others see it as a last resort when they've tried everything else and the other person was clearly negligent or malicious.
Personally, I'm in the latter category. If somebody crashed into me under canopy from behind and I broke a leg, honestly, I doubt I'd do anything if they simply apologized. That's it. Just a sincere apology and I'd consider the issue solved. I have insurance for the hospital bills and I consider accidents like that a risk of the sport.
When put into a situation where you've been injured, each person will react differently. I don't think saying, "Skydivers don't sue skydivers" is fair, because some cases might merit it. But for me, it would have to be pretty drastic. There are a million combinations and circumstances in the middle.
I think I'm up to $.04. Justin
My Homepage

[riggerrob 561]

Far too many Americans sue because of their flawed medical system. They sue because they incur massive debt everytime they are injured. And one of the reasons medical care costs so much is because too many sue-happy people have sued for medical mal-practice, which just drives the cost of mal-practice insurance to obscene levels.
Lawsuits are far less common in other civilized nations, because most other civilized nations have decent medical insurance programs.
Another legal factor is the American court system which allows lawyers to launch hundreds of frivolous lawsuits with no consequences. In Canada - and many other civilised nations - if a plaintif loses a lawsuit, he pays court costs and sometimes legal expenses incurred by the defendant. This policy discourages frivolous lawsuits.

[billvon 2,464]

>Your jump plane pilot flies the first load of the day still
> drunk and crashes the plane. You were aboard and are left a
> quadripelegic. An extreme example, but is that one where
> someone should be forced to take some responsibility? I
> think so.
I think not. Did the person sign the waiver, where it said that there is no liability even if the accident is due to someone else's carelessness or negligence? If the answer is yes, then the only way they can sue is to go back on their word - and I don't believe that's the right thing to do.
>In general, I agree that we accept a certain amount of risk
>of accidents by skydiving. There isn't any sense in trying to
> punish a fellow jumper or pilot for something that happened
> when they tried to do their honest best. But for avoidable,
> careless crap that hurts people, I think they ought to be held
> responsible, if nothing else, for letting their fellow
> skydivers down so badly.
Again, you agreed not to sue when you signed that form. I take that seriously, even though most people don't. If I agree not to sue for X, Y and Z, then I won't.
I am an instructor. I've had a beer on Friday night and jumped with students Saturday morning. I don't jump with students when I'm impaired in any way (even with a hangover) but should my student die, and a lawyer with a view like yours were on the case, I would get sued for, as he would put it, "getting drunk and killing the student." After all, my level of impairment is immaterial, given that I was drinking the night before. Had I not been drinking irresponsibly, their son would be alive, blah blah. I don't think that's right. And you may claim that those two cases are completely separate, but to a lawyer, it's just a difference of degree.
The _only_ thing I think you can justifiably sue for is malice. Someone who tries to hit you in freefall hard enough to kill you, someone who pours sugar in a jumpship fuel tank, someone who sabotages your rig. Everything other than that - stupidity, negligence, carelessness - you have agreed explicitly not to sue for.
Every DZ is different. If you jump at a DZ where the pilot flies while hungover, _you_ have the responsibility to either accept the risk or go elsewhere. If you accept the risk, you have no standing to decide, after the fact, that you didn't accept the risk to begin with. If you don't know what the risk is, don't know how good your pilots are, how well the plane is maintained, don't know how competent your organizer is - shame on you. Skydiving is dangerous. Even if everything goes right, you can get injured or killed. If we don't know enough to decide if the plane is safe enough to fly in, it behooves us to learn. Our lives depend on it.
-bill von

[billvon 2,464]

>If it had been a single instance . . . if the situation that
>caused the poor grommet seating had been corrected -after-
>the accident . . . things may not have gone as far as they did.
The situation was corrected after the accident. An advisory went out to owners to correct the problem. If it's OK to sue after this one, it is _surely_ OK to sue after these situations:
-A cypres that fails to fire in a no-pull situation
-An audible altimeter that breaks in freefall and gives no pull indication
-An ultra high performance canopy that collapses at 10 feet during a hook turn
In all cases, the situation has happened before and wasn't remedied.
>This appears to be a -very- unusual situation, a -very-
>sensitive case and why it was felt by a number of people that
> it had to be handled the way it was. It may not have seemed
> like it at the time and some people may not believe it now,
> but most of the people involved actually were looking out for
> the better interests of the sport as a whole.
I don't believe that. I've talked to the person involved and heard about how much she needed the money. (She was on vacation at the time.)
And what, really, did it do for the sport? It set another precedent that waivers are unenforceable, and it put a gear manufacturer out of business. If those are the things that are good for the sport, I despair for the future of skydiving.
-bill von

[quade 3]

Quote

The situation was corrected after the accident. An advisory went out to owners to correct the problem.

Bill --
Wanna go off-line on this one?
Paul
http://futurecam.com/skydive.html

[NtheSeaOrSky 0]

OK, was trying not to answer, but my fingers can't hold back any longer . Lawyers get paid by arguing and finding loopholes. Living in our sue-happy society, the lawyers of the world are not going hungry! Now, everything I do in a day has risks. Some greater than others. I am responsible to myself for taking the necessary measures to keep those risks as few as possible. To me, skydiving is no different. Yes, I signed many waivers and acceptance of risks. Yes, there are a series of checks to try to minimize the risks. Yes, people are human and humans make mistakes, as it was put before shit happens. But, I see it as MY responsibility to look out for me. So someone screws up, suing is not always the most productive answer. Sure it may get some jump money, but what did it accomplish? It just pisses everyone off and feeds the lawyers - sometimes new rules are in place to prevent the incident from happening again. That having been said, that does not mean everyone is absolved of their responsibilities. Just because I signed a waiver, that doesn't make it ok for the pilot, JM, whoever, to exercise poor/ no judgement. BUT, it is up to ME to determine if I feel comfortable flying with them. As a student, knowing no one in the sport, I just assumed everyone would be "on top of their game". I found out the hard way on my second jump I had a lot of blind faith in these complete strangers. After the incident, did I try to sue the school, the DZ? NO WAY! I brought it to their attention, so as to hopefully prevent the same thing from happening again. Will I jump with those parties involved again.....sure, I just wouldn't trust them to the procedure they overlooked. I moved away a few weeks after it happened (due to my job)and am at a new DZ now. You better believe that from then on, I learned how to do those things on my own. Now, if it gets overlooked, I can blame no one but myself! No offense to anyone, but I trust myself way more than a stranger - no matter how many jumps they have. There are ways to correct a problem without getting sue happy. Even if it is glaringly obvious it was due to their actions. Just another possibility to think about.

[Zennie 0]

Quote

Far too many Americans sue because of their flawed medical system.

OK, being an ex-lawyer, maybe I'm just a tad cynical, but that's not the reason why most people sue. Most people sue for one reason... to get rich. Plain & simple.
I call it the "legal lotto". They lawyer takes & files the case because he wants to hit it big and retire. The clients file the case because they want to hit it big and retire.
Oh sure, they rationalize it. They want to "punish" the offending party, they want to "deter" this kind of situation from happening in the future, they just want "compensation" for their mostly intangible injuries. But when you really get right down to it, they just want to capitalize on misfortune.
Suing strictly to recoup tangibles... medical costs, lost wages, etc. is one thing. But that's not where todays monstrous verdicts come from. That vast, vast majority of today's verdicts come from intangible "losses" -- pain & suffering, loss of companionship, emotional distress. These are the *cha-ching!* claims.
Most people (myself included -- though I recognize it & try to control it) are motivated by money. You want to find the cause of just about any problem in today's society? Just follow the money trail....
"Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

[riggerrob 561]

Please don't feed the lawyers.
This planet would be healthier if lawyers were extinct.

[jfields 0]

Zennie is an "EX-Lawyer", so he is okay. Well, maybe he is in lifelong recovery, like an alcoholic that is dry. Let's just keep him happy and jumping so he doesn't relapse into practicing law again.
Justin
My Homepage

[freeflir29 0]

"That vast, vast majority of today's verdicts come from intangible "losses" pain & suffering, loss of companionship, emotional distress"
I totally agree that most law suits are pretty frivolous. However, if you have ever had your entire life turned upside down, career ruined, and had everyone you know look at you just a little differen't than they used to because of something someone else did. Intentionally or by pure negligence......you might then start to understand how tangible some of those things are....
"Carb Heat On....Carb Heat On.....Carb Heat On..."-Phil Polstra Clay

[edid 0]

Post deleted by edid

[rgoper 0]

To:
riggerrob, and jfields, et:al;
the "attitude(s)" you guys exude mean nothing to anyone in this ever litigious society, there's really no reason for ridicule or sarcasm here. the plain and simple truth is this, we all know that what we do for "shits and giggles" may cause a life threatening injury, or loss of life, etc...if any sky divers are not aware of this, then they need to get out now, instead of getting out at 13,500K. the lawsuits will, if they persists, and prevail, cause an untimely demise to our beloved sport of skydiving. i know of several tragic loss of life, and personal events that happened just this year, one of those loss of life incidents is resulting in lawsuits right now, and my heart goes out to those of the families left behind. but at the end of the day, we ALL know about the infamous "last page" on the disclaimer/indeminity phrase on the stack of legal forms that we all sign BEFORE jumping and/or participating in this particular endeavour, i think that's about all that needs to be said on this subject. of course there are many extenuating circumstances that could contribute to your death/dissmemberment/paralasis//// but if the pilot is hung over, or the jump master obviously still uti from the previous nights formalities, etc....don't fucking jump!
Richard
"Gravity Is My Friend"
P.S.
i did not participate in the "poll" because it's (in my opinion) an exercise in futility.