From Facebook as requested.
Finished up the trial yesterday so I can talk about it. Lots of relevancy to a topic I've had to deal with as Marker Buoy Dive Club (past) President. Liability is a issue that lurks in the background all the time. We don't like to think about it but it's there.
In this case a child was killed on the Mountaineers Snoqualmie campus in a sledding tragedy
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http://bellevue.patch.com/groups/police ... b337e8ac6d]
[Note-There are a
BUNCH of errors in this news piece AND in
ALL of them that I could find. Gives you a bit of perspective on how poor the reporting is on this kind of accident. Never trust the news media to get it right....
never].
I watched the Mountaineers Exec. Director sit there for 2 weeks looking anxious, and watched the parents looking devastated. I saw lots of people cry on the stand and in the jury. There were no winners in this situation. It was awful. It was also fascinating.
The boy apparently jumped in the sled unexpectedly not far up the
WALKING trail (I emphasize that as it was a BIG deal in the decision making), someone pulling the rope on the sled lost the grip with the unexpected load (there was some kind of lying going on about that part), he slid backwards out of control back down the slope into the road and was run over. The parents wanted 10 Million in damages+expenses and the child's potential lost wages for a normal lifespan.
[A decision like that would have bankrupted and ruined the Mountaineers. Yes, they tried to settle several times but the parents (lawyers?) wouldn't have it.]
To me it was a clear decision, Mountaineers were not negligent. They not only did a decent job in keeping the are safe but better than 'industry standard', another key concept. The opinion for most of us was the staging area was not dangerous, nor had there been any accidents in 30 years of recorded safety data.
When it came to deliberation 12 jurors initially split: 5-yes for negligence, 5-no, and 2-maybe. Most of the people on the negligence side had never been on snow other than their backyard, and felt that if a child dies SOMEONE needs to be doing SOMETHING better. They wanted berms, barricades, fences, signs......something. anything. Pointing out that most of the ski areas dump into the road or parking lots didn't seem to sink in for the 'yes' group.
The law/rules we were given provide clear instructions, but relevant terms that can be debated for HOURS......which we did. In the end we got enough of the yes to move over to no to finish the case but it took 2 days and down to the last 15 minutes of Friday with Monday looming over us.
In the end it seems like the decision making in a case like this was NOT about right and wrong, it was about jury selection and the effectiveness of the lawyers. This kind of explains the conflicting information about dive litigation cases. People in broad daylight on a nice day with lots of witnesses couldn't get it 'right'. Jurors listening to all the testimony are split right from the start. How are you going to figure out a diving accident in the murky depths with no one watching? Lawyers will be asking hard questions, one side trying to support, the other side trying to put it in the worst light possible.
Based on the judges debriefing afterward I was privileged to watch some of the best lawyers and trials of a case like this I'm ever likely to see. Both sides were very good. So, need a good lawyer? I now know 2.
The Mountaineers gets to continue their good work. The Ponce family has to figure out how to deal with this turn of events. It's a terrible situation to be in. I gives me pause to think how terrible it is to be on both sides of a case like this.
