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.
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
DIVE SLATE<br />
MEMBER PROFILE<br />
MICHELE<br />
HALL<br />
Text by Hillary<br />
Viders, Ph.D.;<br />
photos by<br />
Howard Hall<br />
Hometown: Born in<br />
Binghamton, N.Y.;<br />
have lived in San Diego<br />
since 1973<br />
Years Diving: 40+<br />
Favorite Dive Destination:<br />
California — on a good<br />
day!<br />
Why I’m a DAN Member:<br />
I value and support what<br />
DAN has provided to the<br />
diving community for<br />
decades. Knowing DAN<br />
will be there in the event<br />
of a medical emergency<br />
during my travels around<br />
the world brings me<br />
tremendous peace of mind.<br />
From left: Michele Hall<br />
photographing a tiger shark<br />
at Tiger Beach, Bahamas;<br />
freediving with spinner dolphins<br />
in Kona, Hawaii; operating an<br />
IMAX 2D camera system and<br />
on comm during the making of<br />
Deep Sea 3D in California<br />
Underwater filmmaker<br />
Michele Hall<br />
has produced 16<br />
documentaries and<br />
won numerous awards,<br />
including the Antibes Film Festival Grand<br />
Prize, a Golden Reel award, an IMAX Hall<br />
of Fame award and an Emmy. In addition<br />
to her many accolades, she is a member<br />
of the Women Divers Hall of Fame,<br />
the Coral Reef Alliance, Ships to Reefs<br />
International, BlueVoice.org and Shark<br />
Savers, and she serves on the board of<br />
directors for the Academy of Underwater<br />
Arts and Sciences. In 2011 she and<br />
her husband were inducted into the<br />
International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame.<br />
Although Hall’s work has been<br />
firmly rooted in diving for almost four<br />
decades, her first career was in pediatric<br />
nursing. Everything changed in 1975<br />
when she signed up for a scuba course<br />
at Chuck Nicklin’s Diving Locker in<br />
San Diego, Calif., where she met the<br />
man she would eventually marry — her<br />
diving instructor, Howard.<br />
While Hall has her own work<br />
responsibilities, she and her husband<br />
share several mutual business ventures,<br />
including a stock-footage library that<br />
licenses their productions for television,<br />
theater and exhibition. They recently<br />
began making films in nontraditional<br />
formats — three- to five-minute shorts<br />
and hourlong art videos — and are<br />
licensing these to entities such as Sony<br />
Entertainment and Netflix.<br />
Whereas many people find it difficult<br />
to work with their spouse, for Hall it is<br />
just the opposite: “It was difficult when<br />
Howard and I were not working together,<br />
and he was away on filming assignments,<br />
sometimes for four or more weeks at a<br />
time,” she explained. “Now we work at<br />
home together and travel together for<br />
dive, road, camping and filming trips.”<br />
Their upcoming adventures include<br />
filming thresher sharks in Malapascua,<br />
Philippines, along with a few nondiving<br />
trips on the horizon. The duo also<br />
enjoys capturing aerial footage from<br />
their experimental aircraft known as an<br />
ultralight trike, which they keep at an<br />
airport a few hours from their home in<br />
Del Mar, Calif. From the trike, they film<br />
breathtaking scenes of the desert and<br />
the surrounding areas. “We love filming<br />
and have incorporated it into all aspects<br />
of our lives and travels,” Hall explained.<br />
“We love taking road trips, hiking and<br />
camping in our van. As the opportunities<br />
arise, we capture time-lapse sequences<br />
of sunrises, sunsets, clouds, the night sky<br />
and even the Milky Way.”<br />
When asked to name her favorite<br />
among her film productions, Hall found<br />
it difficult to decide. She mentioned<br />
the 1997 PBS release of a television<br />
28 | FALL <strong>2015</strong>
Change language