AD 2015 Q4
This is the “not do” component. It is also somewhat harder to define. After all, who determines the duty to care and the non-compliance thereto in unique emergency situations? Still, this component is more likely to lead to a recovery of damages. Put differently, when you are under a legal duty to take reasonable care and you do not do it, then you could be held liable for damages that are directly caused by the breach of that duty. The key elements are “reasonable care” and “directly caused”. Let’s break that down, starting with directly caused. This means that the damages are linked directly to the failure to perform the reasonable duty. This is called a causal connection. In other words, there must be a connection between the duty not complied with and the damages. deep diving are so hazardous that it may well be better to only jeopardise the life of one individual rather than two. That is, of course, as long as no one is put at risk during the subsequent body recovery or rescue efforts! Well, as a qualified instructor and dive leader, I shall continue to teach and advocate the buddy system. I do not like the idea of diving alone anyway. I prefer to share the joys of diving with someone able to share the memories of the dive. To me, diving is, and remains, a team sport. Which introduces another consideration: How would the principle of duty to take care be applied to children who dive? Training agencies impose age and depth restrictions on children who enter the sport before the age of 14. Depending on the age and diving course, a child may be required to dive with an instructor or at least another adult dive buddy. If the adult were to get into trouble, the child would not be expected to meet the duty of care of another adult. He/she would be held to an age appropriate standard. What about all those waivers? As mentioned in the previous article, waivers define the boundaries of the self-imposed risk divers are willing to take by requiring that they acknowledge them. Waivers do not remove all the potential claims for negligence and non-compliance with a duty of care. As such, it is left to our courts to ultimately interpret the content of a waiver within the actual context of damage or injury.
This is the “not do” component. It is also somewhat harder to define. After all, who determines the duty to care and the non-compliance thereto in unique emergency situations? Still, this component is more likely to lead to a recovery of damages. Put differently, when you are under a legal duty to take reasonable care and you do not do it, then you could be held liable for damages that are directly caused by the breach of that duty. The key elements are “reasonable care” and “directly caused”. Let’s break that down, starting with directly caused. This means that the damages are linked directly to the failure to perform the reasonable duty. This is called a causal connection. In other words, there must be a connection between the duty not complied with and the damages.
deep diving are so hazardous that it may well be better to only jeopardise the life of one individual rather than two. That is, of course, as long as no one is put at risk during the subsequent body recovery or rescue efforts! Well, as a qualified instructor and dive leader, I shall continue to teach and advocate the buddy system. I do not like the idea of diving alone anyway. I prefer to share the joys of diving with someone able to share the memories of the dive. To me, diving is, and remains, a team sport. Which introduces another consideration: How would the principle of duty to take care be applied to children who dive? Training agencies impose age and depth restrictions on children who enter the sport before the age of 14. Depending on the age and diving course, a child may be required to dive with an instructor or at least another adult dive buddy. If the adult were to get into trouble, the child would not be expected to meet the duty of care of another adult. He/she would be held to an age appropriate standard. What about all those waivers? As mentioned in the previous article, waivers define the boundaries of the self-imposed risk divers are willing to take by requiring that they acknowledge them. Waivers do not remove all the potential claims for negligence and non-compliance with a duty of care. As such, it is left to our courts to ultimately interpret the content of a waiver within the actual context of damage or injury.
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DIVE SLATE<br />
AT THE BOUNDARY OF CREATION<br />
ROV Hercules hovers above<br />
a pillow-lava field in the<br />
Galápagos Rift region.<br />
At the Boundary of Creation<br />
By Megan Cook<br />
OCEAN EXPLORATION TRUST INC.<br />
In 1977 a team of geologists from Woods<br />
Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)<br />
took the manned submersible Alvin to<br />
the Galápagos Rift region off the coast of<br />
Ecuador. There lies a divergent boundary<br />
where the Nazca and Cocos plates separate<br />
at the speed fingernails grow, about two<br />
inches per year. Studies of the region indicated<br />
that heat was cycling along this east-west rift, but<br />
the seafloor process remained undescribed. The<br />
1977 expedition, led by Robert Ballard, Ph.D., made<br />
an important discovery that would transform our<br />
understanding of how life functions on Earth.<br />
Ballard and his team discovered an underwater<br />
Yellowstone — a highly geologically active area of<br />
lava flows, fissures, vents and chimneys. Towering<br />
hydrothermal vents stood as the backdrop for a realm<br />
of life no one had ever encountered: towering tube<br />
worms, massive clams, bearded mussels and ghostly<br />
white crabs. Peering out of Alvin’s tiny portholes, the<br />
three-man team sat awestruck by the oasis of life they<br />
found flourishing — entirely without connection to the<br />
sun’s energy.<br />
The tall chimneys grew, spewing vent fluids as hot as<br />
650°F into the frigid surrounding seawater and depositing<br />
layer upon layer of dissolved zinc, copper, lead and iron.<br />
Billowing from these chimneys like factory exhaust, black<br />
vent fluids fed the community of creatures that clamored<br />
for Goldilocks real estate — near enough to feed from the<br />
flow but not so close as to be scalded.<br />
Until 1977, all food chains and all life were thought<br />
to rely on solar energy and photosynthesis. The deep<br />
ocean was assumed to be a wasteland where sparse<br />
populations of deep-sea creatures looked upward for<br />
a meal of meager particles that rained down from the<br />
sunny shallows. But deep in the dark ocean, Ballard<br />
and his team had discovered organisms that sustained<br />
themselves completely with chemicals from within<br />
the Earth’s crust. The fact that organisms could<br />
harness the energy of chemical bonds, a process called<br />
chemosynthesis, dramatically increased the number of<br />
habitats capable of carrying life — on Earth and beyond.<br />
Fast forward nearly four decades to <strong>2015</strong>. Although<br />
technology has made the seemingly impossible accessible<br />
and even commonplace, bewilderingly, 90 percent of the<br />
world’s oceans remain unexplored. Floating on the open<br />
sea two miles above the Galápagos Rift is the 211-foot<br />
exploration vessel (E/V) Nautilus. In a darkened control<br />
room on its highest deck, a team of engineers, scientists,<br />
educators, technologists and students stare captivated<br />
into the glow of wall-to-wall video monitors. Each<br />
screen is a window onto the crushing and coal-black<br />
world being explored by Hercules and Argus, the team’s<br />
remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). Linked to the ship by<br />
fiber-optic cables and linked to the entire world via live<br />
satellite broadcast, these robots are humanity’s eyes on<br />
never-before-seen places.<br />
Weighing more than 6,000 pounds and roughly the<br />
size of a car, Hercules is loaded with sensors and sampling<br />
tools, dexterous manipulator arms and cameras aimed<br />
24 | FALL <strong>2015</strong>
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