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.
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
and yellow fishes consisted of a venomous Meiacanthus,<br />
the model; a nonvenomous fangblenny of genus<br />
Plagiotremus, which makes its living snipping scales off<br />
unsuspecting fishes; and a fangless bottom-dwelling<br />
Ecsenius.<br />
The scientists first had to find out for certain if their<br />
model was actually toxic. Springer — well established,<br />
married and the father of two — deferred to Smith-<br />
Vaniz, who in the best tradition of young graduate<br />
students allowed a maddened Meiacanthus, fresh from<br />
the lab tank, to bite him on his bare midriff.<br />
“Stung like a bee, I wouldn’t want to do it again,”<br />
he chuckles over the phone from his home in<br />
Gainesville, Fla. “The wound turned red and formed<br />
a welt that lasted most of the day. But it was worth it.<br />
There was no doubt our model was venomous. Tell<br />
you what, I’ll send you a set of my mimicry papers.”<br />
Days later a bulging envelope arrives. Out spills<br />
several hours of serious reading. From the beginning<br />
it becomes clear that mimicry by natural selection is<br />
difficult to prove, requiring a lot more evidence than<br />
species simply looking alike. For starters, true mimics<br />
should regularly associate with their models, models<br />
are expected to be more abundant, and deception and<br />
benefit must be proven. Then there is something called<br />
geographic variation in appearance, which states that<br />
if there is a strong regional variation in the model’s<br />
appearance, this will be mirrored by the mimic.<br />
On follow-up trips to the Gulf of Aqaba, Smith-<br />
Vaniz and Springer spent hours making observations<br />
underwater and hovering around aquariums with<br />
clipboards in hand. According to their co-authored<br />
paper, on their home turf the three blennies performed<br />
well, staying together 60 percent of the time in some<br />
combination or another. When offered up as food<br />
to a lionfish, a stonefish and a grouper in lab tanks,<br />
all the predators immediately spit out the venomous<br />
Meiacanthus, and from then on had little or nothing<br />
to do with blue and yellow fishes in general — the<br />
charade appears to be a win-win-win. By mimicking<br />
both the Meiacanthus and a defenseless algae-eating<br />
blenny, the scale-nipping Plagiotremus can more easily<br />
sneak up on prey. And the defenseless bottom-grazing<br />
Ecsenius can extend its feeding range by palling around<br />
with its model. At the same time the Meiacanthus’<br />
warning colors get advertised broadly.<br />
While diving in Fiji, thousands of miles from the<br />
Philippines, we find our juvenile monocle bream once<br />
again, but this time it’s completely yellow. It doesn’t take<br />
much scouting around to discover the reason — the local<br />
fanged Meiacanthus and Plagiotremus are also yellow, a<br />
strong case for mimicry if there ever was one. <strong>AD</strong><br />
ALERTDIVER.COM | 33
Change language