Northwest Dive Club

"Pretty simple question"'followed up with "probably" in the answer.

I can't be the only one to see the irony in this.

Not sure there can ever be a "for sure" answer as it relates to liability and law... Seems like just about anyone can try to sue if they feel they have a reasonable chance at it. So, probably is "probably" a good word for it...

Penny -- of course that is an ironic answer and thank you for noticing!

The reality is that the QUESTION is pretty simple -- the answer, because it is a legal one, can't be made without a qualifier. The law is pretty simple -- but once you start adding facts, oh well.

When I heard the details of the sledding accident, from my perspective, this should have been a half day trial and a 10" jury deliberation. EVERYONE that I tell that story to, and I try to do so in a neutral tone to see what the independent opinion will be, wonders why there was even a trial. But, of course I tell the story to divers, skiers, climbers, windsurfers, and the like.

It's getting off the OP question but it became evident that the jury selection process was about trying to color the jury toward the results that each side desired. Taling to the defending lawyer after the trial she said it wasn't a matter of SELECTING a jury, the focus was DE-SELECTING jurors you thought would be against you. This portion of the 'non-trial' is absolutely critical in the outcome and is a big portion of the lawyers skill and art.

Fritz, your post on facebook was read by me over and over again, and I use it as a reference in everything I've been doing since then. It was concerning, but knowing that it could happen was helpful. I have some reference of what actually does happen in a trial of this sort.

The whole process was a revelation to me on a lot of fronts. Being medical and no where near legal, I had a pretty naive notion of how the law worked in cases like this. It wasn't helped a lot by a good number of lawyers giving me different opinions. Now I understand a lot more why the whole process is almost as much opinion as it is based on some massively complex process called 'law'.