Investigating and Litigating
SCUBA, Drowning,
Watercraft & Maritime
Injury Cases

Investigating and Litigating SCUBA, Drowning, Watercraft & Maritime Injury Cases

A Practical Guide for Plaintiff and Defense Counsel

Expanded watercraft edition. Causation and evidence review, September 30, 2026.

Copyright © 2026 Steve Wolf. All rights reserved. Published by SteveWolfExpertWitness.com.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief quotations in professional and scholarly work.

This book is intended for the education of attorneys and does not constitute legal advice. It does not create an attorney-client or expert-client relationship. Statutes, standards, and case law change; counsel must independently verify all authorities and confirm the editions and versions applicable to their jurisdiction and facts before relying on them.

Steve Wolf · Steve@SteveWolfExpertWitness.com · (512) 653-9653 · 44 Beaver Way, Boulder, CO 80304

The Author

About the Author

Steve Wolf is an expert witness whose work includes maritime, drowning, and SCUBA injury cases. He is a NAUI-certified SCUBA instructor, a rescue diver, and an experienced Emergency Medical Technician. He holds a B.A. from Columbia University and has written eleven patents. His experience as a private investigator includes developing evidence in the field.

Wolf evaluates physical evidence, records, witness accounts, and applicable standards. Each opinion requires a connection between the evidence reviewed and the specific question addressed.

Wolf has served as a maritime safety officer, rescue diver, and safety diver on movie sets. He served on the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team and holds seventeen FEMA certifications relevant to water rescue, incident command, and hazard analysis. His investigations address equipment, site conditions, operations, and rescue procedures within the scope of his qualifications.

Wolf has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and NewsNation to explain technical subjects. He can be reached at Steve@SteveWolfExpertWitness.com, (512) 653-9653, or SteveWolfExpertWitness.com.

Foreword

How to Use This Book

An aquatic-injury investigation begins with the reported event, the available evidence, and the questions that remain unresolved. Identify the people, equipment, operating conditions, and legal relationships before selecting a causal theory.

Physical conditions and records can change after an incident. Maintenance can alter equipment, currents can change, and recording systems can overwrite data. Early preservation and qualified examination help establish what remains available and what cannot reliably be reconstructed.

Chapters 2 and 14 address diving and causation. Chapters 3 through 7 address pool operations, standards, visibility, and surveillance. Chapters 8 and 9 address electrical injury and maritime law. Chapters 10 through 12 address boating, personal watercraft, and decided cases. Chapter 13 separates public reporting about Ian Gumbs from unresolved questions. The discovery and investigation chapters provide checklists to adapt to the evidence and jurisdiction.

For each cited standard, establish its scope, edition, adoption, and application to the activity. Distinguish a legal requirement from a contractual undertaking, a training instruction, and a recommended practice. Compare the relevant provision with the evidence rather than assuming a departure or compliance.

An expert should evaluate evidence that supports and challenges each proposed explanation. Equipment condition, human actions, environmental conditions, and medical factors may interact. The report should explain the weight assigned to each and identify unresolved uncertainty.

Introduction

Why Water Cases Are Different

Aquatic injuries can require investigation of changing water conditions, equipment, human actions, and medical events. The available evidence may support several interacting mechanisms rather than a single cause.

A site inspection records conditions at the time of inspection. Establish how those conditions differ from the incident through photographs, maintenance records, environmental data, and witness accounts. Preserve physical items and original electronic records before avoidable changes occur.

Potential authorities include health and construction codes, federal statutes, navigation rules, training standards, and operator policies. Their application depends on the jurisdiction, activity, claimant’s status, and incident date. A document’s relevance does not establish that every provision governs the case.

Physical analysis can estimate forces, pressure changes, visibility, and movement when the inputs support those estimates. Medical analysis addresses injury, incapacitation, treatment, and prognosis. Neither supplies a complete liability analysis without the evidence of conduct, the governing duties, and the applicable causation standard.

Chapter 1

The Anatomy of Aquatic Injury Cases

Aquatic injuries can involve immersion, vessel contact, equipment malfunction, exposure, or falls aboard a vessel or near the water. Identify the alleged injury mechanism and the duties of each participant without assuming that one category excludes another.

The families of aquatic injury cases

Classifying the incident helps identify preservation needs and potential areas of expertise. A single event may involve product design, operating procedures, premises conditions, and medical questions.

Open-Water Drowning

Open-water investigations may involve current, depth changes, visibility, temperature, weather, access, warnings, and rescue resources. Identify who controlled the activity or location and what duties the governing law imposed. Assess the participant’s knowledge and conduct alongside the operator’s actions; the invitation to enter the water alone does not establish liability.

Pool and Spa Drowning

Pool and spa investigations may involve barriers, depth markings, drains, water quality, lighting, surveillance, and emergency response. Identify the applicable requirements and reconstruct the incident before deciding which conditions contributed to the injury.

SCUBA Fatalities

SCUBA investigations may involve equipment condition, breathing gas, dive planning, supervision, diver actions, and medical events. Preserve the equipment, available computer data, and medical evidence. Evaluate potential interactions rather than assuming an equipment defect, an operator breach, or diver fault. See Chapter 2.

Maritime and Vessel Accidents

An injury aboard or near a vessel may raise maritime jurisdiction and choice-of-law questions. Evaluate the location, activity, claimant’s status, and relationship to the vessel. Those findings affect available claims and remedies but do not resolve factual causation. See Chapter 9.

Watercraft and personal-watercraft injuries

Separate the event involving the vessel from the injury to each occupant. Preserve evidence of collisions, flooding, overturning, falls overboard, propulsion contact and escape. Retain the experts needed to evaluate the actual vessel and medical mechanism. See Chapters 10 through 13 for watercraft investigation, decided cases and a neutral account of a current matter.

Electric-Shock Drowning

Consider electrical exposure when an incident occurs near energized equipment or witnesses report shocks or loss of movement. An electrical investigation and medical review are needed to evaluate that possibility. A drowning diagnosis or absence of burns alone does not resolve whether electrical exposure contributed. See Chapter 8.

Cruise-Ship Incidents

Cruise claims may involve passenger-ticket terms governing notice, filing deadlines, forum, and choice of law. Obtain the actual contract and check its enforceability, applicable statutory protections, and any exceptions. Calendar potential deadlines while the jurisdictional analysis proceeds.

Resort and Hotel Aquatic Injuries

Identify the entities that owned, operated, managed, maintained, and controlled a resort’s aquatic facilities. Examine contracts, actual practices, access, warnings, and staffing. Corporate affiliation alone does not establish operational control or responsibility.

Plaintiff and Defense Postures

The plaintiff must prove the elements of the claim under the applicable burden of proof. The defense may challenge that proof and may bear separate burdens on affirmative defenses. Do not substitute the criminal-law phrase “reasonable doubt” for the civil standard.

Assess preservation needs promptly: equipment, logs, inspection records, maintenance history, and original recordings. Delay may restrict reconstruction, but its effect depends on what evidence survives and what other reliable sources are available.

Both sides should investigate before avoidable changes to the scene or equipment. Evaluate comparative fault, assumption of risk, and causal connection under the governing law. Parental inattention and an operator’s failure can coexist; neither should be assumed to exclude the other.

Identifying the expertise needed

An aquatic incident may occur outside a witness’s view or involve a mechanism unfamiliar to a lay observer. Video, testimony, equipment, and medical records can each supply part of the sequence. Identify their limitations rather than dismissing an entire category of evidence.

Retain specialists for questions that require their knowledge, training, or experience. The need for expert testimony and its admissibility depend on the issues and governing rules. Early consultation can guide preservation and testing without committing the expert to a conclusion.

Fluid Dynamics and Hydrostatics in Causation Analysis

Hydrostatics and fluid dynamics can help evaluate pressure, buoyancy, flow, and forces. Use a calculation only when the available inputs, assumptions, and uncertainty support the question being addressed.

Hydrostatics: The Physics of Water at Rest

Hydrostatic pressure increases with depth at roughly one atmosphere for every 33 feet of seawater. Pressure changes are relevant to breathing-gas use, gas expansion, and decompression. Buoyancy depends on displaced water and total weight, including equipment; a diver’s motion also depends on swimming effort, gas volume, and other conditions.

Fluid Dynamics: The Physics of Water in Motion

Moving-water analysis may address drag, drain suction, recirculating flow, and thermal conditions. For a simplified drag model, force varies with the square of relative velocity when density, projected area, and drag coefficient remain constant. A real swimmer’s posture and motion can change those inputs. State the model’s assumptions before applying its result to a person.

A numerical result does not establish reliability by itself. Document the measurements, model, uncertainty, and alternative explanations. Explain which conclusions the calculation supports and which require additional evidence.

The Litigation Timeline: A Preview

Preservation, investigation, pleading, discovery, expert disclosure, and trial preparation overlap. Jurisdiction and deadlines may require action before technical analysis is complete. Update the investigative plan as new evidence changes the questions.

Repairs, servicing, or rewiring may alter evidence. Compare preincident records, removed parts, witness accounts, and any available exemplars before deciding what can still be tested. Distinguish a lost opportunity for a particular test from a conclusion that the entire case cannot be reconstructed.

Common Threads Across All Case Types

Across these cases, examine physical conditions, human actions, medical findings, and applicable duties. Some incidents have extensive records; others do not. Do not transfer a supervision rule, technical model, or inference from one activity to another without examining its fit.

Organize the analysis by proposition: the evidence supporting it, contradictory evidence, assumptions, and remaining uncertainty. Revise the conclusion when the balance of evidence changes.

Chapter 2

SCUBA Fatality Litigation

A SCUBA fatality can involve several interacting events before and after the diver loses the ability to self-rescue. Equipment, breathing gas, the dive profile, environmental conditions, supervision, and medical history require separate examination and an integrated reconstruction.

Equipment condition, diver actions, and other contributors

Equipment failure and diver actions are not mutually exclusive explanations. Preserve the regulator, buoyancy compensator, cylinder, weights, computer, gauges, mask, and fins as recovered. Compare their condition with the dive records, witness accounts, and medical findings.

Testing may reveal a malfunction or contamination, but an intermittent failure may not recur during inspection. A computer may record depth without cylinder pressure, breathing rate, or the diver’s actions. A rapid ascent alone does not establish panic, and low gas does not establish that the diver ignored a gauge. Evaluate the data the actual equipment records and the explanations it cannot distinguish.

Regulator Failure

A regulator reduces cylinder pressure and delivers breathing gas on demand. Investigate reported free-flow, abnormal breathing resistance, intermediate-pressure changes, corrosion, and servicing history. Testing should distinguish observed defects from proposed causes and address manufacturing, maintenance, use, and postrecovery changes.

BCD Malfunction

A buoyancy-compensator malfunction can interfere with buoyancy control. Its effect depends on the malfunction, weighting, exposure suit, remaining gas, diver actions, and available assistance. Examine inflation and exhaust components under a documented protocol and compare the results with the recorded profile and medical evidence.

Tank Contamination

Suspected breathing-gas contamination requires sampling and laboratory analysis under a documented protocol. Preserve residual cylinder gas before refilling or emptying. Obtain compressor records, intake location, maintenance history, and applicable gas-quality specifications. Evaluate exposure and medical effects with qualified specialists rather than inferring them from a single symptom.

Dive-Operator Negligence

Dive planning, briefings, supervision, and emergency response require examination alongside equipment and medical issues. Determine the operator’s role and the standards applicable to that operation.

Inadequate Briefings

Obtain the briefing content, site information, planned profile, buddy assignments, emergency procedures, and recall signals. Compare written materials, recordings, and witness accounts. Establish what information was available and communicated, and how any omission relates to the incident.

Buddy-System Failures

Review buddy assignments, separation procedures, training, and the divers’ actual positions. Separation can arise through several sequences. Establish the operator’s responsibilities and the evidence of each person’s actions before concluding that an assignment or supervision practice fell below an applicable standard.

Depth-Limit and Certification Violations

Depth recommendations and training requirements vary by agency, course, age, and activity. Obtain the applicable standards and the diver’s certification and experience records. A depth figure alone does not establish a breach or explain the injury.

Decompression Sickness: Causation and Medical Evidence

Decompression sickness involves injury associated with inert-gas bubbles during or after decompression. It can occur after a dive within prescribed computer or table limits; exceeding a limit is not a necessary condition. Divers Alert Network, Effective Use of Your Dive Computer. Evaluate the profile, gas, repetitive exposure, symptoms, examination, and competing diagnoses.

A dive computer estimates decompression status from a model and the inputs available to that device. It does not directly measure a diver’s tissue-gas loading or all individual risk factors. Divers Alert Network, Effective Use of Your Dive Computer. Preserve the device, settings, download method, and complete available history. A diving-medicine specialist should assess the clinical significance alongside medical records and treatment findings.

Training-Agency Standards as the Duty-of-Care Benchmark

Training-agency standards can inform the assessment of instruction and supervision. They do not exhaust the potentially applicable law or duties. Identify the activity, agency affiliation, course, standards edition, and any statutes, regulations, or contractual obligations relevant to the operator.

Identify the specific provision and explain why it applies. Compare the conduct with its requirements and consider other relevant evidence. Compliance or departure may inform the standard-of-care analysis, but neither independently resolves causation or liability.

Key Deposition Questions for Dive Operators and Instructors

1. What training agency’s standards does your operation follow, and where are they written down?
2. Walk me through your standard pre-dive briefing, point by point. What did you tell these divers on the day in question?
3. How did you verify each customer’s certification level before the dive? Show me the records.
4. What was the planned maximum depth and dive profile, and who set it?
5. How were buddy teams assigned, and what did you tell divers to do if they became separated?
6. What is your service schedule for rental regulators and BCDs, and who performs that service?
7. Where do you source your breathing air, and when was it last tested to CGA Grade E?
8. What is your emergency action plan, and when was it last rehearsed? Who was the designated rescue diver on scene?
9. How many divers was each divemaster supervising on this dive?
10. What oxygen and emergency equipment was on the boat, and was it functional?

Qualifications for the specific diving opinion

Instructor certification may support expertise in teaching and supervision. Equipment engineering, dive medicine, and other disputed questions may require different qualifications. Evaluate the expert’s training and experience against each proposed opinion rather than treating one credential as a test of credibility.

Expert selection should address qualifications, sufficient facts or data, reliable methods, and their application to the disputed facts. No combination of a certification, a log, and equipment testing guarantees admissibility. Federal Rule of Evidence 702, amended 2023.

The Autopsy in SCUBA Deaths

A suspected diving death warrants consultation with a forensic pathologist familiar with diving medicine. Coordinate imaging, dissection, sampling, and evidence preservation with the medical examiner. Interpret intravascular gas and other findings in light of recovery, resuscitation, decomposition, and the documented dive sequence.

Compare the autopsy with equipment findings, the dive profile, gas analysis, witness accounts, and medical history. A suspected gas embolism does not by itself distinguish panic, an equipment problem, breath-holding, or another sequence. State which findings support each explanation and which remain nonspecific.

Nitrogen Narcosis and Oxygen Toxicity

Nitrogen narcosis and oxygen toxicity are potential issues in a diving investigation. Assess the breathing mixture, depth, exposure duration, diver response, and medical evidence. A depth measurement or apparent mistake alone does not establish either condition.

Consider physiological impairment as one possible explanation for a diver’s actions, not as a replacement assumption for “diver error.” Evaluate the supporting evidence and the operator’s actual responsibilities for planning, gas selection, and supervision.

Rental-Equipment and Product-Liability Overlays

Rental equipment may raise maintenance, instruction, product-design, and supply questions. Identify who designed, owned, supplied, serviced, and used the item. More than one party or mechanism may have contributed, and the equipment examination must be assessed with the rest of the record.

Map custody and service history, including parts, modifications, bulletins, and recalls applicable to the model. Determine whether a relevant condition existed before the incident and how it could have affected performance. A recall or missed service alone does not establish causation.

Waivers, Releases, and Assumption of Risk in Diving

Obtain the signed waiver, transaction records, and circumstances of execution. Enforceability depends on the governing law, wording, parties, activity, and alleged conduct. Do not assume that a negligence label either defeats or establishes the defense; research the jurisdiction’s treatment of each claim.

Analyze assumption of risk separately from waiver and comparative fault. Identify the risk at issue, the participant’s knowledge, the relationship between the parties, and the governing doctrine. Whether an equipment or operating hazard falls within an accepted risk requires that analysis, not a general statement about diving.

Chapter 3

Pool, Spa & Aquatic Facility Drowning

Pool and spa investigations require assessment of access, physical conditions, operations, supervision, and response. Determine which regulations and standards applied and how any alleged departure relates to the injury.

How often this happens, and to whom

CDC reported 4,509 unintentional drowning deaths in the United States in 2022. CDC, Vital Signs, May 2024. National counts describe the public-health burden; they do not identify a mechanism or responsible party in an individual case.

CPSC’s 2025 report gives an annual average of 357 reported pool- or spa-related fatal drownings among children younger than fifteen for 2020 through 2022. It estimates an annual average of 6,300 emergency-department-treated nonfatal drowning injuries in that age group for 2022 through 2024. CPSC, 2025 Pool or Spa Submersion report. Keep the different reporting periods and fatal/nonfatal methods separate.

Population patterns can guide initial questions but cannot classify an individual death by age alone. Investigate the actual setting, access route, supervision, physical conditions, and sequence in each file.

The Premises-Liability Framework

A pool injury may raise premises, operational-negligence, product, or other claims. Identify each defendant’s role and the jurisdiction’s rules concerning entrant status and children. Duty, breach, causation, defenses, and damages require separate analysis.

Lifeguard supervision, and the standard the facility actually adopted

For a supervision claim, examine the governing law, the operator’s undertakings, and the training program in use. A private program may inform reasonable practice without supplying every applicable duty.

Jeff Ellis and Associates trains lifeguards to the 10/20 protection standard: scan the assigned zone in ten seconds, reach the person within twenty. The American Red Cross teaches a thirty second scan of the entire zone, including the bottom, and does not use 10/20. The Model Aquatic Health Code requires diagrammed zones of patron surveillance in which a lifeguard can view the whole assigned zone and reach its furthest extent within twenty seconds, and it declines to set any recognition time at all. The United States Lifesaving Association writes standards for open water and beaches, not pools. Chapter 7 works through the differences and the research on how lifeguards actually perform against them.

Obtain zone diagrams, certifications, training and audit records, staffing schedules, and time records. Investigate discrepancies between planned coverage and actual staffing. A missing diagram or expired credential requires explanation; it does not alone establish the surveillance conditions or the cause of a drowning.

Drain Entrapment and the Virginia Graeme Baker Act

Drain-related incidents may involve body suction, hair entanglement, mechanical entrapment, or other mechanisms. Identify the specific drain, cover, plumbing, pump settings, and contact evidence. The Virginia Graeme Baker Act’s additional-system requirement distinguishes a single main drain from an unblockable drain; apply the actual configuration and incident-date law.

Evaluate statutory compliance alongside the physical mechanism. Preserve cover specifications, installation records, flow ratings, pump and plumbing configuration, and any secondary system. A violation may be relevant evidence, but its legal effect and causal connection require separate analysis.

Chemical exposure and water-quality injuries

Chemical-exposure investigations may involve dosing, mixing, ventilation, contamination, and equipment operation. Identify the substances, concentrations, exposure route, and clinical findings. Do not infer the organism or chemical mechanism solely from a report of irritation or illness.

Obtain chemical readings, controller data, maintenance records, training records, and the incident timeline. Check the MAHC and other relevant guidance against the jurisdiction’s adopted requirements. Determine what each record measures and whether it reflects conditions during the exposure.

Visibility and rescue

Assess water clarity, illumination, glare, depth, viewing angle, surface disturbance, obstructions, and the victim’s position. Determine which visibility and lighting requirements applied at the time. A compliant reading at one location does not establish visibility throughout the pool.

Chapter 5 addresses clarity evidence and Chapter 6 addresses lighting and glare. Evaluate those conditions alongside surveillance, recognition, access, rescue, and medical factors rather than assigning visibility a presumed share of responsibility.

Bather load, crowding, and the water nobody is watching

Occupancy may affect sightlines, surface disturbance, surveillance demands, and water-treatment load. Compare the actual count and distribution of patrons with the venue’s design, staffing, and applicable occupancy requirements.

Admission counts, gate records, video, and staffing sheets may help estimate occupancy. Account for people who entered, left, or remained outside the water and for uncertainty in those records. Exceeding a relevant occupancy limit and causing a particular injury are separate propositions.

Evaluating defense arguments

‘The Drowning Was Instantaneous and Unpreventable’

A delayed response may be relevant to causation, but comparison with a response target is not sufficient by itself. Reconstruct recognition, access, recovery, and care. A qualified medical expert should assess whether an earlier feasible intervention could have altered the outcome, considering the mechanism and available evidence.

‘The Parent Was Responsible for Supervision’

Examine the responsibilities and actions of parents, facility staff, and other participants separately. Comparative-fault rules and the treatment of parental conduct vary by jurisdiction. Do not assume that lifeguard presence removes parental responsibilities or that parental inattention eliminates a facility’s duty.

‘The Victim Assumed the Risk’

Evaluate assumption of risk under the governing law and specific activity. Consider the participant’s knowledge, the visibility of the condition, and the defendant’s role. A general distinction between pools and open water does not determine the defense.

Hotel and resort pool investigation

For a hotel or resort pool incident, identify the owner, operator, manager, franchisor, maintenance contractor, and staffing provider. Establish each entity’s control and duties before selecting defendants. Review lifeguard requirements and representations, barriers, drains, water quality, lighting, warnings, and response records. Reconstruct the event and assess available insurance separately from the merits.

Facility records may support, contradict, or leave gaps in an allegation. Determine which records should have existed, who kept them, and why any are unavailable. Missing records alone do not prove the alleged condition or its causal role.

Barriers, Fencing, and the Attractive-Nuisance Doctrine

In an access-related child drowning, reconstruct how the child reached the water. Compare fences, gates, latches, doors, and other access routes with the requirements applicable to that property. Do not assume that every child drowning resulted from a barrier defect.

The jurisdiction’s rules for child entrants and artificial conditions require fact-specific analysis. Examine foreseeability, the child’s ability to appreciate the danger, control of the property, and available precautions. Prior gate complaints may bear on notice if they concern a relevant condition.

Signage, Depth Markings, and Diving Injuries

A shallow-water entry can cause head, spinal, or other injuries and may precede drowning. Examine depth, pool geometry, markings, warnings, the participant’s knowledge, and the manner of entry. Assess compliance and the likely effect of a proposed warning separately.

An open-and-obvious or assumption-of-risk defense requires the applicable law and evidence of the condition and participant’s knowledge. Deficient markings may matter, but they do not automatically defeat either defense.

Spa and Hot-Tub Hazards

Spa and hot-tub investigations may involve thermal exposure, medical conditions, alcohol or medication, chemical exposure, suction, and access. Establish the temperature, duration, equipment configuration, warnings, and medical findings before selecting a mechanism.

Compare the actual warnings and operating practices with applicable requirements. For a warning theory, investigate what information the user received and how a different warning could have affected the conduct at issue.

Applying the Model Aquatic Health Code

The CDC’s Model Aquatic Health Code addresses public aquatic-facility design and operation. Determine what the jurisdiction adopted and what remained guidance. Where a provision was not adopted, explain its relevance rather than treating it as an enforceable requirement.

Identify the jurisdiction, adopted edition, local amendments, and facility classification. Chart the relevant health, construction, and operational provisions alongside the evidence and any disputed questions about application.

Initial pool-investigation tasks

Chapter 4

Public Pool Standards and Who Writes Them

Pool requirements may come from federal law, state or local regulation, adopted construction codes, and contractual undertakings. Model codes and private standards may also inform the analysis. Identify the authority and scope of each provision before applying it.

Distinguishing enforceable requirements from other evidence

An adopted health or construction provision and an applicable federal statute may be enforceable law. A model code, consensus standard, or private manual may have a different role unless incorporated into law or an undertaking. Departure from a private program is not automatically a legal breach; explain the duty, relevance, and evidence.

Ask three questions at intake. Which jurisdiction’s health code applied to this pool on the date of loss? Which model or consensus documents did that code adopt, in whole or in part? What did the operator promise, in its own manual, its franchise agreement, its insurance application, or its marketing?

Potential sources of pool requirements

MAHC code language and annex explanation

The Model Aquatic Health Code (MAHC) is the national model for the design, construction, operation, and management of public aquatic facilities, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The current version is the 5th Edition, posted in December 2024, with the annex revised in February 2025. It is not federal law. It becomes enforceable only where a state, local, territorial, or tribal jurisdiction adopts it, and jurisdictions adopt all of it, part of it, a modified version of it, or none of it.

The code volume contains proposed regulatory requirements. The annex supplies rationale and background. Cite the appropriate volume and section, and establish adoption before describing model language as an enforceable duty. An annex explanation may support technical reasoning without creating a separate requirement.

Identify the applicable edition and adoption history

Create a chart of the provisions in force at construction, alteration, and the incident. Check local amendments, transition periods, retrofit requirements, and grandfathering. A publication date alone does not establish when or how a jurisdiction made a provision applicable.

The consensus standards, and the name change that trips people up

The Association of Pool and Spa Professionals became the Pool and Hot Tub Alliance in 2019. Standards carry the designation in force when they were last approved, so the series reads inconsistently, and it should be cited inconsistently. ANSI/APSP/ICC-1 is still cited that way. Do not modernize the older designations.

Check each standard’s stated scope. Do not infer a lifeguard-staffing requirement or a public-pool barrier requirement from the title of a document addressing a different activity or facility type.

The International Swimming Pool and Spa Code renumbered lighting

The International Swimming Pool and Spa Code, published by the International Code Council, is adopted by many jurisdictions as the construction code for pools. In the 2024 edition, lighting is Section 322, with 322.2 requiring artificial lighting and 322.3 covering emergency illumination. In the 2012, 2015, 2018, and 2021 editions, the same material sat at Section 321. A 2019 incident in a jurisdiction on the 2018 edition is governed by 321, and a brief that cites 322 for it is citing a section that did not yet carry that number. The code does not contain a standalone water clarity section; water quality is handled by reference to the pool and spa water quality standard rather than by an independent turbidity test.

Trace the drain-cover standard through the statute and regulation

The Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act was enacted December 19, 2007, as Title XIV of the Energy Independence and Security Act, and is codified at 15 U.S.C. 8001 to 8008. Its requirements took effect one year after enactment. Section 8003(c) requires every public pool and spa to be equipped with anti-entrapment devices or systems, and requires a public pool or spa with a single main drain other than an unblockable drain to have at least one additional system: a safety vacuum release system that stops the pump or releases the vacuum when a blockage is detected, a suction limiting vent system, a gravity drainage system, an automatic pump shutoff, a device that disables the drain, or another system the Consumer Product Safety Commission finds equally effective.

The statute names ASME/ANSI A112.19.8 and provides for successor standards. Trace the applicable regulation, effective dates, product certification, and installation history. The date an opinion is written does not determine which product standard applied to an earlier installation or incident.

What the states actually require

State and local requirements differ on water clarity, illumination, testing, and closure. The examples below require confirmation against the incident-date text, adopted construction code, and local amendments before use.

Read each provision in context. A visual test and an instrument limit may address different aspects of compliance. Do not infer that a state has no lighting requirement from one repealed provision or one subsection; check construction codes, local rules, and other applicable law.

Nineteen conditions that require a pool to close

The MAHC identifies conditions calling for immediate correction or closure. The items below address supervision, visibility, lighting, equipment, and occupancy. Confirm the incident-date edition and adoption before describing them as binding duties.

Separate the model closure language from the jurisdiction’s enforcement procedure. Establish the condition, the responsible person’s obligations, and any corrective action. A closure violation and a causal contribution to an injury remain distinct issues.

Who is qualified to run the pool

Operator credentials include the Certified Pool and Spa Operator and Aquatic Facility Operator programs. Verify the credential, curriculum, validity period, and jurisdictional requirement relevant to the incident. Do not treat possession of a credential as proof of compliant operation.

A credential does not establish what an individual learned, knew, or did. Obtain the relevant curriculum and training records, then compare the operator’s conduct with applicable requirements. Do not infer compliance or noncompliance from certification alone.

Build a standards chart

For each potential departure, identify the authority, evidence, competing interpretation, and possible causal relevance. A standards chart organizes those questions; it does not resolve them.

Chapter 5

Water Clarity and the Failure to See the Bottom

Poor water clarity can impair recognition and search. Its contribution depends on the victim’s location, depth, contrast, light, surface conditions, surveillance, and response. Evaluate clarity as part of that sequence rather than assuming it caused the initial submersion or the eventual outcome.

What clarity means when a body is on the bottom

Submerged-object visibility depends on contrast, light transmission, depth, distance, surface disturbance, and viewing angle. A patron’s description of “clear” water does not substitute for the applicable visibility test. Record what the observer could see, from where, and under what conditions.

A 2022 study reported 108 manikin-detection trials involving four professional lifeguards at two pools and a mean detection time of 18.1 seconds. Vignac and colleagues, Ability of Lifeguards to Detect Submerged Manikins in Public Swimming Pool Environments. These results describe the tested guards and conditions, not the time a particular guard would have taken during an actual incident.

A Lifesaving Society field study reported difficulty detecting submerged manikins under some combinations of distance, depth, and pool finish. Before applying such findings, compare the study’s target, environment, observers, and methods with the incident conditions.

Visual tests and instrument measurements

Clarity requirements can include a visual test, an instrument limit, or both. The MAHC’s marker-tile provisions address bottom visibility under specified conditions. Identify the applicable provision, object, viewing position, and operating condition before assessing compliance.

State clarity tests differ in marker size, viewing location, and permitted methods. Florida also uses a numerical turbidity limit. Verify the incident-date requirement rather than treating a test described for one jurisdiction as a national rule.

Read the clarity provision together with the applicable correction or closure provision. Establish adoption, the condition at the relevant time, and the actions required. Citing both provisions does not itself prove that the operator violated either.

Why the water went cloudy

Investigate filtration, circulation, chemistry, bather load, and source-water or weather conditions. Records may support more than one contributor and may not document every change.

Establish the duration and likely causes of any clarity problem. Compare maintenance history, notice, occupancy, and corrective actions. Do not infer deliberate disregard from cloudiness alone.

Proving the water was cloudy after it has been cleaned

Maintenance after an incident can change water clarity. Record what changed and compare later measurements with incident-time photographs, recordings, tests, and testimony. The following sources may assist that comparison.

• Video with a known reference. Compare visible objects of known size and location. Camera exposure, compression, angle, glare, and lighting can affect their appearance; an indistinct drain in one frame is not by itself a calibrated clarity measurement.
• Response photographs. Establish the capture time and any changes that occurred before each image. Do not assume a responder’s photograph predates all alterations.
• Inspection records. Determine what the inspector observed and how close in time and condition the inspection was to the incident. An earlier citation may bear on notice but does not establish incident-time clarity.
• Facility logs. Compare chemical readings, filter pressures, backwash records, and turbidity tests where available. Investigate missing entries without treating their absence as a measurement of water condition.
• Witness testimony tied to an object. Do not ask a witness whether the water was cloudy. Ask whether they could see the bottom, the drain, the tile, the black line, and from where they were standing. The code’s test is the question to ask.
• Search and recovery. Document search locations, viewpoints, methods, timing, and obstacles. Difficulty finding a person can have several causes and does not independently establish a clarity violation.

Interpreting measurements and sightlines

Use measurements and sightline evidence together. Later instrument readings describe later conditions unless a reliable reconstruction connects them to the incident. Contemporaneous turbidity data also require attention to sampling location, method, and the viewing conditions relevant to detection.

Evaluating a clarity-related causation theory

For a theory that impaired clarity delayed rescue, investigate the following propositions separately. Evidence supporting one does not supply proof of the others.

1. The water failed the applicable clarity test on the date of loss.
2. The applicable code required closure, or at minimum required correction, in that condition, and the pool stayed open.
3. The failure delayed detection. Reconstruct where the victim submerged, where the guards were, and what the sight line was, and show what the delay was.
4. Assess whether an earlier feasible detection and intervention could have changed the outcome. Use qualified medical analysis and case-specific evidence rather than assigning the person a survival probability from a general table.

Drowning prognosis requires consideration of multiple factors. Submersion duration is relevant, but it does not determine an individual outcome by itself. AHA/AAP, 2024 focused update on resuscitation following drowning. State the timing uncertainty, medical findings, available intervention, and evidence supporting any opinion about preventability.

Testing competing clarity arguments

‘The water met the standard’

Ask which clarity test was performed, when, from which locations, and how it was recorded. If records are absent, investigate the testing and retention practices. Absence of documentation alone does not establish that a test was omitted or that the water failed it.

‘Cloudy water did not cause the death, the victim drowned before anyone could have helped’

Evaluate the claimed delay against the available medical and rescue evidence. A response target is an operational benchmark, not an individual survival deadline. Determine whether recognition was possible and what treatment could feasibly have begun earlier.

‘Nobody measured the turbidity, so the claim is speculation’

Assess clarity through the available records, images, testimony, and qualified reconstruction. If alteration or loss of evidence is alleged, examine the duty to preserve, timing, prejudice, and applicable spoliation rule. Routine remediation is not automatically proof of wrongdoing.

The case that changed a state’s rule

Marie Joseph drowned in a Fall River, Massachusetts, public pool in June 2011. Her body remained undiscovered for more than two days. State investigators reported poor visibility and concluded that the pool should not have opened that day. Associated Press, July 21, 2011. Attribute those findings to that investigation rather than treating them as a conclusion about other pool incidents.

The Marie Joseph investigation concerns a specific pool and sequence of events. Its findings may suggest questions about clarity, search, and closure, but they do not establish what another operator could see or what another jurisdiction required.

Clarity checklist

Chapter 6

Lighting, Glare, and Night Operations

Lighting and glare can affect detection even when water meets a clarity requirement. Assess illumination, reflections, viewing position, target contrast, and surveillance together. The feasibility of reconstruction depends on how well the incident conditions can be established.

Three separate lighting duties, not one

Separate requirements for surface and deck lighting, underwater visibility, and emergency egress. Their scope and permitted alternatives vary by code and facility. Compliance with one requirement does not necessarily satisfy the others.

The numbers the model code sets

The Model Aquatic Health Code sets minimum maintained light levels for the water surface and deck: 30 horizontal foot-candles indoors at the water surface, 10 foot-candles outdoors at the water surface, and 10 foot-candles at the deck. Those minimums are drawn from the Illuminating Engineering Society recommended practice for sports and recreational area lighting at the recreational class of use. Where underwater lighting is provided, the code requires not less than eight initial rated lumens per square foot of pool water surface area, and it requires that the underwater lights, together with the overhead or deck lighting, be located so that all portions of the venue, including the bottom and the drains, may be readily seen. Deeper water calls for higher levels. Dimmable lighting is not permitted underwater.

Evaluate operating hours and floor visibility under the applicable lighting provisions. Those requirements may inform a night-visibility claim, but the analysis also needs incident-time conditions, surveillance, response, and medical evidence.

Lighting requirements during operation

Distinguish installation requirements from conditions for continued operation. Establish which provisions applied and what the staff could observe or measure that night. A visual check and a photometric requirement may both be relevant.

Ask who checked visibility, when the check occurred, how it was performed, and what action followed. Compare testimony with records. Do not infer that no check occurred merely because responsibility was poorly documented.

What the states require

A performance requirement addressing blind spots must be evaluated separately from a minimum illuminance value. Establish its applicability and the actual sightlines. A compliant reading at one point does not resolve visibility in another area.

Watts, lumens, and the retrofit problem

Watts measure electrical power; lumens measure light output. A historical incandescent assumption cannot be applied unchanged to every LED fixture. Review the adopted rule, approved design, and manufacturer’s photometric data rather than using a single conversion factor for all equipment.

An LED retrofit can change power consumption, light output, distribution, color, and glare. Determine whether the adopted code permits an equivalency and what documentation the approving authority required. Compare that compliance question with measured visibility under relevant conditions.

Glare and changing viewing conditions

Glare may come from sunlight, windows, deck fixtures, or other sources. Its effect changes with observer position, surface conditions, and light-source geometry. A later inspection may not reproduce the incident glare without accounting for those differences.

The MAHC addresses glare in design and operating provisions. Review requirements concerning windows, fixtures, assessment locations, and visibility during operation. Distinguish the code text from the annex’s explanation and determine which provisions the jurisdiction adopted.

Request any glare assessment and supporting records. Establish whether an applicable provision required an assessment, documentation, or both. A missing written assessment alone does not establish the visibility condition or the effect on recognition.

Measuring light after the fact

A lighting reconstruction requires evidence of the original fixtures, settings, condition, and environment. Document which variables can be reproduced, which have changed, and how those changes affect the comparison.

1. Inventory the fixtures: type, lamp, wattage or lumen rating, age, and position, taken from the electrical drawings and verified on site.
2. Establish what was working. Pull lamp replacement invoices, work orders, and inspection notes for the months before and after the incident, and look for lamps replaced immediately afterward.
3. Measure with a calibrated illuminance meter at the water surface, on the deck, and at the lifeguard stations, on a grid, recording the meter, the calibration date, and the height and orientation of every reading.
4. Match or account for fixture output, switching, water and surface conditions, weather, and solar azimuth and elevation. The same clock time alone does not establish equivalent light.
5. Photograph and video from each lifeguard position, with a manikin or weighted target on the bottom where the victim was found, and record whether it can be seen.
6. Compare the measured values to the code in force, and state which values are code, which are recommended practice, and which are your own measurements.

Photographs of a submerged target can illustrate a supported visibility analysis. Document camera settings, target properties, viewing position, and differences from the incident. A camera image does not necessarily reproduce human recognition or establish what a guard actually saw.

Why the underwater lights were off

Investigate why lights were not operating, if the evidence establishes that condition. Possible explanations include lamp failure, a disconnected fixture, a tripped protective device, timer settings, or maintenance. Work orders and testimony may distinguish among them without resolving the cause of the injury.

Have a qualified electrical expert assess the lighting installation under the applicable code and listing instructions. Repeated tripping warrants investigation of the device, circuit, and connected equipment. Do not assume that tripping proves current entered the water or reached the swimmer.

Night swims, rentals, and the pool that was closed on paper

For an after-hours incident, examine posted hours, barriers, locks, access records, permissions, and prior use. Establish what the operator knew and what duties the governing law imposed. A posted closing time alone does not resolve access control or liability.

Determine whether barriers and gates complied with applicable requirements and whether the operator knew of repeated unauthorized access. Analyze child-entry rules, notice, foreseeability, and comparative fault separately. Do not infer a duty or its scope from after-hours use alone.

Lighting checklist

Chapter 7

Drowning Dynamics and Why Nobody Saw It

A person may submerge without immediate recognition by nearby people. Investigate the visible signs, viewing conditions, assigned responsibilities, attention, and response. The fact that a drowning went unnoticed does not by itself establish why recognition failed or who breached a duty.

Use precise clinical terminology

Drowning is respiratory impairment from submersion or immersion in liquid. Respiratory arrest can progress to cardiac arrest, and resuscitation addresses both breathing and circulation. AHA/AAP, 2024 focused update on resuscitation following drowning. Identify the clinical sequence supported by the evidence rather than assigning it a fixed duration.

Use fatal or nonfatal drowning and describe the actual clinical findings. Older labels can obscure whether respiratory impairment occurred and how symptoms developed. Do not use a terminology dispute or a universal time cutoff to exclude a diagnosis without medical review.

Observable signs and their limits

Descriptions of the instinctive drowning response include difficulty maintaining the airway above water, vertical posture, and arm movements directed toward support. These observations are not a universal sequence. Do not require shouting or conspicuous splashing before considering that a swimmer needed assistance.

Published descriptions of brief surface struggles should not be treated as a stopwatch for an individual incident. Establish what observers or recordings show and identify uncertainty about the start of respiratory impairment, loss of consciousness, and submersion.

Recognition, intrusion, distraction

The recognition, intrusion, and distraction framework provides categories for examining surveillance. It does not exhaust possible explanations for a missed incident. Compare each proposed failure with the actual assignments, sightlines, communications, and observations.

The MAHC addresses tasks and distractions that interfere with surveillance. Obtain the applicable text and the evidence of actual assignments and conduct. Evaluate how a proposed distraction affected observation in the incident, rather than treating its presence as a complete causal explanation.

What the research shows about detection

Detection studies can inform questions about surveillance performance. Compare their methods, settings, targets, and limitations before applying findings to the incident.

The studies measure different tasks under different conditions. Scan duration, detection of a manikin, travel to a person, and initiation of care are not interchangeable. The findings do not support one multiplier for “ordinary” lifeguard performance or establish the time a particular victim would have been detected.

The 10/20 standard, what it is and what it is not

Jeff Ellis and Associates introduced the 10/20 protection standard in 1991, after development work its founder began in 1983. As the firm states it, a lifeguard should be able to scan the assigned zone in ten seconds and reach a person needing assistance within twenty. Published formulations vary on the second half between reaching the person and reaching the person and beginning care, and that variance is worth pinning down in deposition, because the difference is measurable. Ellis licenses lifeguards for one year, requires four hours of in-service training a month to keep the license, audits client facilities unannounced, and can annul a lifeguard’s license for failing a vigilance test or an audit.

A scan interval, recognition interval, and travel-time requirement describe different tasks. The MAHC’s zone requirements and the facility’s training program must be read in their own terms. Do not apply the Ellis 10/20 formulation to every facility or dismiss other relevant safety evidence solely because the facility used a different program.

Begin with the program the facility used, then examine governing law and other relevant evidence of reasonable practice. Distinguish a scan instruction from a recognition target and a travel-time requirement. Adoption of a program does not by itself resolve the full standard of care or causation.

The zone, the blind spot, and the empty chair

Examine the following potential surveillance problems against records, testimony, video, and site conditions. A single document may not establish how supervision actually occurred.

• Zone planning. Obtain any required diagrams and investigate how staff assigned coverage. A missing plan may affect compliance analysis but does not alone establish that an area was unwatched.
• Restricted sightlines. Document structures, features, glare, and other obstructions from the relevant positions. Account for changes since the incident before drawing conclusions from a later visit.
• Water assigned to nobody. Boundaries between zones, and areas closed to swimming but still reachable, are the classic gaps.
• Rotation and fatigue. Surveillance for more than sixty continuous minutes, missed breaks, doubled shifts, and rotations performed by leaving the water unwatched during the changeover.
• Intrusion. The guard was testing chemicals, cleaning, checking wristbands, teaching a lesson, or running the slide dispatch.
• Distraction. Telephones, conversation, and the supervisor who stopped to talk to the guard on the stand.
• The empty chair. The facility advertised lifeguards and the stand was unstaffed, or staffed by an uncertified guard or one whose license had lapsed.

Building the submersion timeline

Build a timeline that distinguishes observed events, estimates, and unknown intervals. Use it with medical findings, physical conditions, and conduct evidence; chronological order alone does not establish causation.

1. Last seen alive and above water, with the witness and the basis for the time.
2. Submersion time or a supported range, identifying the observations and assumptions used. The recovery location alone may not establish where or when submersion began.
3. Discovery, and by whom: a guard, a patron, or a body that surfaced or was stepped on.
4. Extraction from the water.
5. First rescue breath and first compression.
6. The 911 call, which carries a dispatcher timestamp and often an audio record of the scene.
7. Emergency medical services arrival, first documented rhythm, and transport.
8. Arrival at the emergency department, with the first recorded temperature, blood gas, and neurological findings.

Compare timestamps and check clock offsets, missing footage, recording delays, and device accuracy. Record witness estimates with their basis and uncertainty. Do not assume that all estimates are wrong in the same direction.

Assessing the effect of delay

Submersion duration is a prognostic factor, not an individual outcome determination. AHA/AAP guidance calls for consideration of multiple factors when assessing children resuscitated after drowning. AHA/AAP, 2024 focused update on resuscitation following drowning. Evaluate the following evidence together.

Clinical basis: AHA/AAP, 2024 focused update on resuscitation following drowning. This framework does not assign a survival percentage to a particular person.

Separate observed timing from the counterfactual claim that earlier intervention would have changed the outcome. Explain the medical and operational basis for that claim and its uncertainty. Do not presume that delayed detection, rather than another event or several events together, was the relevant breach.

Detection systems and staff response

Obtain the detection system’s coverage, settings, alarm history, maintenance records, and staff-response procedures. Distinguish camera recording from active monitoring and automated detection. An alarm or a coverage gap requires context: establish whether it concerned the person, whether staff received it, and how it affected a feasible response. Check the applicable MAHC provision on supplemental monitoring and staff duties.

Detection checklist

Chapter 8

Electric-Shock Drowning (ESD)

Electrical exposure may contribute to a drowning without an obvious external injury. Evaluate that possibility through electrical, scene, witness, and medical evidence. Do not infer an electrical cause simply from the location near a dock.

Evaluating suspected electric-shock drowning

Electrical exposure can interfere with movement, breathing, or cardiac function. Its effects depend on current through the body, path, duration, frequency, and individual circumstances. An absence of burns does not resolve whether a relevant exposure occurred.

Water conductivity affects current distribution, but exposure also depends on the source, return path, voltage gradient, and swimmer’s position. Investigate suspected electrical involvement alongside other medical and physical explanations.

AC Current Leakage in Marinas, Lakes, and Pools

Investigate dock wiring, connected vessels, shore-power cords, appliances, and other nearby electrical systems as potential sources. In pools, examine lighting and other relevant equipment rather than assuming the underwater light was responsible. Establish the fault and return path through qualified testing.

Separate the source of leakage from the responsibilities for detecting, interrupting, or warning of it. Determine which protective requirements applied to each system and whether the proposed protection would have operated under the incident conditions. A fault on a boat neither automatically absolves nor establishes liability for the marina.

NFPA 303: Marinas and Boatyards

NFPA 303 addresses marina and boatyard fire and electrical safety. Establish the edition, scope, and any adoption or undertaking relevant to the facility. Compare actual inspection and maintenance practices with the applicable provisions; the document’s title alone does not establish a breach.

Electrical-code scope and protective devices

Determine the relevant NEC article and edition for the installation, including marina, floating-structure, and pool provisions as appropriate. Distinguish personnel protection from equipment ground-fault protection. Trip thresholds, circuit coverage, and installation conditions matter; a protective-device requirement is not a guarantee that every possible shock injury will be prevented.

Obtain permits, drawings, inspections, modifications, device specifications, and test records. A qualified electrical expert should identify applicable requirements and evaluate any departure. Deferred maintenance may be relevant, but it does not establish the incident fault path or medical effect.

Testing and Detection: Electrical Expert Versus Aquatic Expert

Select expertise for the questions actually disputed. Electrical analysis may address the installation, fault path, voltage gradients, and protective devices. Aquatic-safety analysis may address access, conduct, and rescue. Medical or other specialized expertise may be needed for physiological effects and causation. Do not prescribe an exact number of experts for every case.

Record connected equipment, loads, switching, water conditions, and changes before testing. Coordinate preservation with immediate hazard isolation and public safety. No inspection should require leaving an unsafe system energized or exposing a person to suspected current.

Coordination among specialists

Share relevant data among specialists and identify common assumptions. Each expert should assess the work relied upon within the expert’s competence and disclose limits or disagreements. EMT training alone does not establish qualification for every medical-causation opinion.

Evidence needed to evaluate an electrical theory

General recognition of electric-shock drowning does not establish that it occurred in a particular incident. A case-specific analysis requires evidence of the source, exposure conditions, sequence, medical findings, and relevant duties.

A later voltage measurement demonstrates the condition measured during that test. Explain how the test relates to the incident configuration and the swimmer’s possible exposure. It does not by itself prove that electrical current caused the death.

The Physiology of Electric Shock in Water

Describe the proposed physiological effect with attention to current path, magnitude, duration, and uncertainty. Do not assume a fixed progression from sensation to paralysis to cardiac arrest for every exposure. Qualified medical analysis should address the findings and competing mechanisms.

An electrical measurement and a medical conclusion address different propositions. Establish the evidence for exposure and then assess its likely effect in the documented sequence. Identify any inference that cannot be tested from the available record.

Water conductivity and exposure

Conductivity is one input in an electrical-exposure analysis. Salt water is not a reason to treat an energized-water hazard as safe, and fresh water alone does not prove a lethal exposure. Evaluate the actual circuit and the potential difference across the swimmer’s body.

Investigating the Suspected ESD Death

Preserve relevant electrical records and components while qualified personnel isolate hazards. Interview witnesses about shocks, movement, contact, and timing. Collect medical records and investigate other causes. Document changes needed for rescue or public safety before any controlled examination.

Boats, appliances, water levels, and electrical loads can change after an incident. Preserve evidence of those variables promptly. Weigh later tests against their differences from the incident rather than treating early measurement as a substitute for the other evidence.

Prevention Standards and the Marina’s Duty

Evaluate installation, protective devices, inspections, maintenance, access restrictions, and warnings as separate safety measures. Determine who controlled each measure and what the applicable requirements demanded. Assess the causal effect of an alleged omission rather than assuming that one measure would have prevented every outcome.

Chapter 9

Maritime & Admiralty Injury Cases

An injury involving navigable waters may raise maritime jurisdiction, choice-of-law, remedy, and procedural questions. Analyze them alongside the factual investigation. Location alone does not resolve every maritime-law issue.

Jurisdiction: Admiralty Versus State Tort Law

Federal admiralty jurisdiction over a tort requires two things: a location on navigable waters (or a land injury caused by a vessel on navigable water) and a connection to traditional maritime activity, meaning the incident had a potentially disruptive effect on maritime commerce and a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity. That is the test refined in Jerome B. Grubart. When it is met, substantive maritime law applies even in state court under the saving-to-suitors clause.

Determine the substantive law and available forum separately. Maritime and state remedies can interact, as Yamaha v. Calhoun illustrates in Chapter 12. Analyze the activity, location, claimant’s status, and claim rather than assuming that every injury aboard a vessel receives identical treatment.

The Jones Act: Seaman Status and Its Implications

The Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30104, provides an employment-negligence remedy for qualifying seamen. Under Chandris, the worker’s connection to a vessel or fleet in navigation must be substantial in duration and nature. The roughly 30 percent guideline is not a stand-alone eligibility test. Examine the worker’s duties, assignments, and relationship to the vessel.

The Jones Act seaman enjoys a plaintiff-friendly causation standard: the employer is liable if its negligence played any part, however slight, in producing the injury. The seaman also has maintenance and cure, a no-fault right to living expenses and medical care until maximum medical improvement, independent of any negligence claim.

The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act

The LHWCA provides benefits for covered maritime workers subject to its status, location, and other requirements. Analyze employer immunity and any vessel-negligence claim separately, including special rules where roles overlap. A maritime job title alone does not establish coverage or a third-party cause of action.

Analyze employment status and covered location under the LHWCA, together with any seaman-status question. A worker’s inability to establish Jones Act status does not automatically establish LHWCA coverage. Check exclusions and other potentially applicable remedies.

Vessel-Owner Liability: The Unseaworthiness Doctrine

An unseaworthiness claim concerns whether the vessel, equipment, or crew was reasonably fit for the intended use. Distinguish that claim from Jones Act negligence and establish the claimant’s entitlement to invoke it. A condition may support an unseaworthiness theory without proof of notice, but the claimant must still establish the required causal connection.

Define the alleged unfit condition and the task at issue. Obtain appropriate technical evidence about the condition, its effects, and alternative explanations. An equipment defect alone does not resolve the entire claim.

Recreational-Boating Accidents

Recreational-boating investigations may address collision, wake exposure, propulsion contact, ejection, or submersion. Evaluate applicable navigation rules with speed, lookout, traffic, loading, weather, equipment, and participant conduct. A collision rule does not necessarily address every mechanism in a boating injury.

Propulsion-contact and ejection investigations may require design, guarding, cut-off-device, seating, and operating evidence. Select specialists for the actual issues. Preserve the vessel, records, and available electronic data before avoidable repair or transfer.

Cruise-Ship Injury Litigation

Obtain the passenger-ticket contract promptly and calendar notice, filing, and forum provisions. Research enforceability and statutory exceptions before concluding that a term bars a claim. Do not assume that every cruise contract uses identical periods or procedures.

For the substantive claim, identify the applicable duty and any notice requirement under the governing law. Analyze international carriage rules only if the voyage and jurisdiction make them relevant. Air-carriage conventions do not supply rules for a sea-carriage claim merely because the trip was international.

Expert-Witness Needs: Naval Architect Versus Safety Expert

Assign technical questions according to demonstrated expertise. Stability, structural condition, operating practice, navigation, human factors, and medical prognosis may require different specialists. Coordinate factual assumptions while preserving each expert’s independent analysis.

The Navigation Rules as a Standard of Care

Identify whether the Inland or International Navigation Rules applied to the location and operation. For any alleged violation, establish the facts and evaluate its relationship to the casualty. The applicability and scope of the Pennsylvania Rule require jurisdiction-specific legal analysis; do not treat any navigation violation as automatic liability.

Separate proof of a rule violation from its causal effect and any burden-shifting doctrine. Examine the conduct of all relevant vessels and the possibility of concurrent causes.

Limitation of Liability and Other Vessel-Owner Defenses

If a limitation action is available under the applicable statutory version, examine the vessel’s coverage, alleged negligence or unseaworthiness, and the owner’s privity or knowledge. Evaluate procedural orders, stipulations, and the saving-to-suitors issues before assuming that a limitation filing eliminates all jury-trial rights.

Review limitation procedures, claim deadlines, applicable orders, and any stipulations affecting other proceedings. Privity or knowledge is one question within that framework, not a substitute for statutory coverage or the underlying liability analysis.

Check current statutory coverage before applying historical limitation cases. Under 46 U.S.C. § 30502(b), the limitation chapter, except § 30526, does not apply to “covered small passenger vessels,” a defined category. Determine the vessel classification and applicable statutory version rather than assuming every rental or passenger vessel receives limitation protection. 46 U.S.C. §§ 30501, 30502 and 30526.

Passenger and Recreational-Boating Drownings

In an overboard or passenger drowning, examine the vessel event, entry into the water, injury, flotation, escape, rescue, and medical care. Determine the duties of each participant and evaluate possible concurrent causes. Do not frame the investigation as a forced choice between an unavoidable tragedy and one operational failure.

For cold-water exposure, establish temperature, duration, flotation, clothing, medical condition, and response opportunities. Assess whether a proposed earlier intervention was feasible and what evidence supports an effect on the outcome. General survival estimates do not establish that a particular person would have survived.

Chapter 10

Boating drownings, capsizing and entrapment

A passenger can enter the water because a boat overturns, fills with water, strikes another object, or throws the passenger from a seat. The Coast Guard records capsizing, flooding or swamping, collisions, and falls overboard as distinct incident categories. Those categories describe different events, not interchangeable explanations for a death. USCG, Recreational Boating Statistics 2024, incident tables and glossary.

Separate the vessel event from the injury mechanism

Build two timelines. The first should describe what happened to the vessel, including changes in direction, speed, loading, water entry and orientation. The second should describe each person's location, entry into the water, injuries, flotation, escape and recovery. Ask the retained experts to identify where the timelines connect and where the evidence remains incomplete.

Do not equate recovery from the water with a medical finding of drowning. In the Coast Guard's 2024 recreational-boating records, personal watercraft accounted for 38 deaths, of which 10 were drownings and 28 were attributed to other causes. That classification supports separate investigation of traumatic injury and submersion; it does not establish the mechanism in an individual case. USCG 2024, Table 24, p. 49.

These are 2024 figures, not estimates for 2026. The Coast Guard's index listed the 2025 report as pending when checked on September 30, 2026. USCG accident-statistics index. The 2024 report also describes changes in reporting policy, which counsel should examine before presenting year-to-year comparisons. USCG 2024, pp. 9 to 14.

Capsizing is not the same as flooding

The Ethan Allen overturned after a turn, waves and passenger movement acted on a vessel with insufficient stability. The Miss Majestic sank after water entered through a driveshaft-housing opening. These investigations illustrate why a reconstruction must identify both the initiating event and the vessel's response. NTSB, Ethan Allen investigation; NTSB, MSR-19/01.

Preserve the boat before a yard removes equipment, pumps compartments dry, repairs openings, or changes the load. If emergency or environmental conditions require alteration, document what responders changed, who changed it, and when. Ask a naval architect or qualified marine engineer to evaluate stability and loading. Ask a marine surveyor to document hull condition, openings, pumps and maintenance.

• Loading: Obtain passenger positions, available passenger weights, fuel levels, equipment locations, capacity documents and departure photographs.
• Vessel configuration: Record modifications to seating, roofs, rails, propulsion, batteries and permanently installed equipment.
• Water entry: Photograph drains, plugs, through-hull fittings, ventilation openings, hatches, seals, damage and waterlines before testing.
• Conditions: Obtain time-specific wind observations, forecasts, warnings, wave evidence, wake sources, routes and shelter locations.
• Sequence: Distinguish the first heel or list from the first observed water entry and the eventual overturning or sinking.

Ethan Allen: stability after modification

On October 2, 2005, the Ethan Allen carried an operator and 47 passengers on Lake George, New York. During a right turn, the vessel encountered a wave or waves and rolled to port. Twenty passengers died. NTSB, DCA06MM001.

The NTSB attributed the capsizing to insufficient stability against the combined effects of waves, a sharp turn and the resulting passenger shift. Its postaccident calculations supported a permitted load of only 14 persons rather than the 48 aboard. The agency also identified the failure to reassess stability after modification as a contributing cause. NTSB, Ethan Allen probable-cause determination.

In a comparable investigation, obtain the original stability work and every subsequent modification record. Do not assume a displayed capacity figure describes the vessel in its incident configuration. Have the naval architect compare the actual configuration and load with the assumptions used for certification.

Miss Majestic: flooding followed by canopy entrapment

The amphibious passenger vessel Miss Majestic sank on Lake Hamilton, Arkansas, on May 1, 1999. Thirteen passengers died. The NTSB described water entering through a gap at the driveshaft housing after a clamp securing a watertight rubber boot was not secured. NTSB, MSR-19/01, Miss Majestic discussion.

As the stern settled, additional water entered over the transom. The continuous canopy trapped passengers and contributed to the loss of life. The investigation therefore addressed maintenance, flotation and escape, not just the initial leak. NTSB, MSR-19/01.

Keep those issues separate in discovery. Maintenance records address the opening through which water entered. Buoyancy and compartment records address how the vessel responded. Canopy dimensions, seat arrangements and escape openings address whether occupants could leave.

Stretch Duck 7: weather, flooding and restricted escape

Stretch Duck 7 sank on Table Rock Lake near Branson, Missouri, on July 19, 2018. Sixteen passengers and one crewmember died. The NTSB found that the operator continued waterborne tours after a severe thunderstorm warning and that waves entered through a non-weathertight bow air-intake hatch. NTSB, April 28, 2020 findings.

The NTSB also identified inadequate reserve buoyancy and impediments to escape. The fixed canopy and closed starboard curtain restricted passenger egress. Those findings concern the investigated vessel and casualty; they are not findings about every boat with a roof or side curtain. NTSB, Stretch Duck 7 findings.

Obtain the weather information available to each decision-maker, the time each warning arrived, and the authority to cancel a trip. Preserve the route, distance to safe exit points, communications, bilge-alarm data and onboard recordings. For escape analysis, document opening dimensions and obstructions with the vessel upright, flooded and in the final orientation established by the evidence.

Entrapment requires a specific mechanism

A canopy can block escape from a sinking passenger vessel. A personal-watercraft intake can entangle long hair, loose clothing or flotation-device straps. The NTSB and Yamaha describe these different hazards; neither supports treating every report that someone was “pulled under” as proof of a particular mechanism. NTSB, emergency-egress report; Yamaha, accident-prevention guidance.

Use “entrapment” as an issue to investigate until the evidence identifies what held the person. Preserve garments, hair evidence, straps, ropes, grates, handles, rails and relevant surfaces. Photograph contact marks and any material recovered from machinery. Do not demonstrate a suspected entrapment mechanism with a person exposed to operating propulsion equipment.

In re Aramark: the boat's limits and the weather forecast

On April 25, 2009, a rented Baja 202 Islander sank on Lake Powell and four adults died. The owner's manual identified the vessel as Design Category C and specified a maximum wind speed of 27 knots, approximately 31 miles per hour. The renters had not been informed of that classification. In re Aramark Sports and Entertainment Services, No. 14-4118, Tenth Circuit, August 1, 2016.

The appellate court distinguished two duties. It rejected a duty to obtain and provide weather forecasts in the circumstances before it, but recognized a duty to exercise reasonable care in warning renters about the boat's wind limitation. The court vacated the judgment and remanded without deciding whether Aramark breached that warning duty. Aramark, 2016 opinion.

Obtain the exact owner's manual and the rental briefing, not just a general weather report. Keep a vessel's design limits separate from an operator's cancellation policy and from any duty imposed by the applicable jurisdiction. A historical appellate ruling is not a universal rental policy.

Chapter 11

Jet-ski and personal-watercraft injuries

Personal watercraft combine propulsion, steering and rider support in a compact vessel. The NTSB's personal-watercraft study describes an inboard engine driving a water-jet pump, with a movable nozzle directing thrust. A propulsion investigation must distinguish that arrangement from an exposed outboard or stern-drive propeller. NTSB, Personal Watercraft Safety, SS-98/01.

Identify the craft before describing its operation

Record the manufacturer, model, model year, hull identification number, engine, pump, nozzle, intake grate, controls and software configuration. Obtain the manual that belongs to that vessel. Preserve the actual warning labels with photographs showing their placement, condition and visibility from each seat.

Do not apply a statement about a 1990s craft to every modern model. The 2013 Yamaha VXS/VXR manual describes an off-throttle steering system that supplies some thrust during specified deceleration conditions. Yamaha's RiDE system uses a separate lever to control deceleration and reverse thrust. Neither description establishes the equipment installed on another vessel. Yamaha, 2013 VXS/VXR manual; Yamaha, RiDE technical description.

Off-throttle steering and collision avoidance

The 1998 NTSB study described a recurring problem in the craft it examined: when an operator released the throttle, the reduction in jet thrust also reduced directional control while the craft continued moving. That historical finding warrants investigation of throttle input and steering response, but does not establish that every later craft has the same handling characteristics. NTSB, SS-98/01.

For the 2013 VXS/VXR, Yamaha states that its off-throttle steering assistance operates under specified conditions at planing speeds and does not function when the engine is off. Yamaha also warns that the craft has no separate braking system. The model's manual, not a generic account of “jet skis,” supplies those operational details. Yamaha, 2013 VXS/VXR manual, operating limitations and stopping.

Have a qualified reconstruction expert evaluate the approach speed, separation, sightlines, throttle history, steering input and time available. Do not infer speed solely from spray, engine sound or a witness's adjective. If testing is appropriate, use an agreed protocol, instrumented measurements and a representative exemplar rather than altering the evidence craft without notice.

Wake encounters and rider ejection

In Ford v. Polaris, a passenger fell backward from a personal watercraft and entered the high-pressure jet stream. The appellate opinion describes hand position, rear handholds, craft movement, and nozzle location. Each supplies detail for evaluating the ejection and injury sequence. Ford v. Polaris Industries, No. A106375, May 18, 2006.

Document the seating order and each rider's position before the event. Preserve evidence of acceleration, turns, wake direction, wake source, separation between craft, handholds and instructions to passengers. Reconstruct whether the rider separated from the seat before, during or after a collision. Do not use the existence of a wake alone to establish unsafe operation.

Water-jet injuries without an exposed propeller

A water jet can cause severe internal injury without blade contact. Yamaha's 2013 VXS/VXR manual warns that forceful water entry into the rectum or vagina can cause severe internal injury and that ordinary swimwear does not provide adequate protection. It directs riders to use a wetsuit bottom or equivalent protective clothing as defined in that manual. Yamaha, 2013 VXS/VXR manual, required protective equipment.

Ford v. Polaris documents a passenger's severe internal injuries after rearward ejection into the jet stream. Hickerson v. Yamaha also involved serious internal injuries, but the plaintiff's warning and design claims failed on the evidentiary record. The injury category does not decide whether a product was defective. Ford, 2006 opinion; Hickerson, Fourth Circuit, February 20, 2018.

Preserve the passenger's clothing, seat and nozzle geometry, warning labels, rental equipment lists and training materials. Obtain the treating physicians' operative findings and diagnostic images. Ask the medical expert and the propulsion expert to address their respective parts of the mechanism. Do not substitute an attorney's interpretation of photographs for medical causation testimony.

Intake entanglement and powered machinery

Yamaha warns that long hair, loose clothing and personal-flotation-device straps can entangle in moving parts and cause severe injury or drowning. Its guidance also warns against applying throttle when someone is standing or swimming near the rear of the craft. Yamaha, To Prevent Accidents.

Before anyone clears the intake, document the grate, fasteners, pump, shaft and any recovered material. Record who moved the craft and whether anyone ran the engine after recovery. Ask the examining expert to distinguish physical entanglement from jet exposure, hull contact and movement caused by waves or another vessel. Keep each explanation provisional until supported by evidence.

Engine cut-off devices and motion after ejection

An engine cut-off switch link connects an operator to a system intended to stop the engine when the operator separates from the operating position. Federal law requires use on covered recreational vessels while operating on plane or above displacement speed, subject to statutory exceptions. The statutory definition includes vessels under 26 feet capable of at least 115 pounds of static thrust. 46 U.S.C. § 4312.

The federal exceptions include an enclosed main helm and a vessel that lacks a switch and is not required to have one. State law and the vessel's own instructions require separate examination. Do not present the federal rule as an unconditional requirement for every vessel and every operating condition. 46 U.S.C. § 4312(b) and (c).

Preserve the switch, clip, cord, attachment point, wireless components if present, and photographs taken before disconnection. Record who wore or held the link. Examine whether the operator actually separated far enough to activate it. Preserve the as-found state before conducting a documented function test.

Continued movement does not by itself prove that an engine continued running. Yamaha warns that stopping the engine does not immediately stop the craft's forward motion. Distinguish engine sound, pump operation and powered acceleration from momentum, waves and current. Yamaha, PWC Controls.

Overturning, reboarding and rescue

The 2013 VXS/VXR manual specifies a particular righting direction and an engine-shutoff procedure for a capsized craft. Such instructions are model-specific. Do not copy one manufacturer's recovery procedure into an opinion about a different machine. Yamaha, 2013 VXS/VXR manual, capsized watercraft.

Reconstruct the interval from separation to recovery. Identify who remained with the vessel, where each person surfaced, the available flotation, communications and rescue equipment, and who first reached the injured person. Record attempted reboarding separately from rescue. Have the appropriate experts assess rescue feasibility from the actual conditions rather than a generic survival-time estimate.

Rental instruction must address the actual machine

New York Navigation Law § 73-a requires a livery operator or agent to explain and demonstrate operating procedures and safety equipment by video or an actual in-water demonstration. It then requires the user to demonstrate the ability to operate the craft and use its safety equipment. The statute also requires each rider to wear a securely fastened Coast Guard-approved personal flotation device. New York Navigation Law § 73-a(1)(a), (2)(b) and (2)(c).

The displayed statute prohibits rental to a user under 16 and contains a limited certificate exception for a person over 18 operating within specified supervised boundaries. Subsection (2)(f), which contains that exception, is marked for repeal on January 1, 2027. Verify the incident-date text, the user's circumstances and any other applicable provisions before forming a compliance opinion. New York Navigation Law § 73-a(2).

Request the actual briefing video, its version, the language used, the instructor's records and any recording of the renter's demonstration. Compare the script with the machine supplied. A signed acknowledgment is one item of evidence; investigate what the operator demonstrated and what the renter actually did.

Chapter 12

Decided watercraft cases and the limits of their holdings

A design-defect judgment, a preemption decision and a ruling about available damages answer different legal questions. Identify the question a court actually decided before using a case in an expert report or motion. The examples below identify the reported decision, not a promise that every later claim with similar injuries will receive the same treatment.

Ford v. Polaris: rearward ejection and jet-stream injury

Susan Ford suffered severe internal injuries on September 9, 2001, after falling from the rear of a Polaris SLH-700 on Lake Berryessa. The opinion describes her difficulty holding the rear grips and her exposure to the jet nozzle after she lost her hold. The jury found a design defect and causation. Ford v. Polaris Industries, California Court of Appeal, No. A106375, May 18, 2006.

The Court of Appeal affirmed. It held that primary assumption of risk did not bar the strict-products-liability design claim in the circumstances presented. The court distinguished ordinary risks of falling into the water from the particular risk of internal injury caused by rearward ejection into a high-pressure jet. Ford, 2006 opinion.

The jury did not reach the separate warning-defect theory. Do not cite Ford as a holding that every warning was inadequate or that every passenger's operator was negligent. For a design investigation, obtain the handhold configuration, seating geometry and evidence supporting any proposed alternative. Ford, jury findings and appellate analysis.

Hickerson v. Yamaha: injury severity does not replace admissible proof

Hickerson involved serious internal injuries during personal-watercraft use and claims based on warning and design defects. In 2018, the Fourth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Yamaha. The court upheld the exclusion of the plaintiff's expert warning opinion and concluded that the record lacked admissible evidence supporting either defect theory. Hickerson v. Yamaha Motor Corporation, No. 17-1075, February 20, 2018.

This was a defense judgment on that record, not a finding that water-jet injuries cannot occur. Review the evidentiary basis for every proposed warning and alternative design before disclosure. Ask the retained expert to identify the method, supporting data, limitations and connection to the specific accident.

Truong v. Nguyen: collision and primary assumption of risk

Rachael Truong died when two personal watercraft collided at Coyote Lake, California, on June 1, 2003. She was a passenger on a Polaris SLX. The other vessel was a Yamaha WaveRunner GP1300R. Truong v. Nguyen, No. H029974, November 5, 2007.

The California Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment for the defendants. It applied primary assumption of risk to personal-watercraft coparticipants, including passengers, and found no triable issue of intentional injury or conduct so reckless that it fell outside the ordinary activity. The negligent-entrustment claim also failed on the evidence presented. Truong, 2007 opinion.

Do not extend that California coparticipant analysis automatically to a commercial instructor, rental business, manufacturer or a claim governed by maritime law. Identify each defendant's relationship to the activity and the law that governs the claim. Preserve the route, traffic pattern, speed evidence, operator experience and opportunity to observe the other craft.

Yamaha v. Calhoun: a jet-ski death and available remedies

Twelve-year-old Natalie Calhoun died on July 6, 1989, after a rented Yamaha WaveJammer struck an anchored vessel in Puerto Rico's territorial waters. Her parents asserted product-liability claims and sought remedies under state wrongful-death and survival law. Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A. v. Calhoun, 516 U.S. 199 (1996).

The Supreme Court held that state remedies remained applicable in the circumstances presented, involving the death of a nonseafarer in territorial waters. The Court did not determine that Yamaha's product was defective. It also did not resolve every choice-of-law question or award the requested categories of damages. Calhoun, 516 U.S. 199.

Resolve the claimant's status, location and governing remedial law before valuing a claim. Keep that legal analysis separate from the engineering question of why the collision occurred. A remedies decision cannot establish defect or causation.

Cuenllas v. Yamaha: an off-throttle trial example

A 2010 article by engineer Craig Good describes an August 1997 collision involving rented Yamaha WaveRunner III craft in the Bahamas. According to the article, Burt Diaz released the throttle, attempted to steer around David Cuenllas, and struck him. Cuenllas suffered paraplegia. Craig Good, “Personal watercraft: High-speed fun, high-speed defects,” Plaintiff, August 2010.

The article identifies the proceeding as David Cuenllas v. Yamaha Motor Corporation, Los Angeles County Superior Court No. BC 196681, and reports a February 2000 verdict based on the failure to install a rudder. It describes testing of an alternative rudder arrangement. This account is a secondary litigation source, not the verdict form or an appellate opinion. Good, 2010 case account.

Obtain the trial record and later procedural history before relying on the reported outcome. For another craft, evaluate its actual steering system and a technically supported alternative. Do not transfer the article's test distances or results to a different model.

Sprietsma v. Mercury Marine: preemption is not a defect finding

Jeanne Sprietsma fell from a ski boat on July 10, 1995, and suffered fatal injuries from its outboard propeller. Her estate alleged that the motor was unreasonably dangerous because it lacked a propeller guard. Sprietsma v. Mercury Marine, 537 U.S. 51 (2002).

The Supreme Court held that the Federal Boat Safety Act and the Coast Guard's decision not to require propeller guards did not preempt the state common-law claim before it. The Court reversed and remanded. It expressly did not decide the merits or whether the claim was viable under Illinois law. Sprietsma, 537 U.S. 51.

Use Sprietsma for the preemption issue it decided. A proposed guard still requires analysis of the relevant product, feasible design, performance, risks and causal effect. The absence of a federal mandate is not a substitute for that analysis.

Brochtrup v. Mercury Marine: propeller contact during rope recovery

Jacob Brochtrup entered the water behind a Sea Ray ski boat to retrieve a tow rope. The operator put the boat into reverse and backed over him. The MerCruiser stern-drive propeller severely injured his right leg, which surgeons ultimately amputated at the hip. Brochtrup v. Mercury Marine, Fifth Circuit No. 10-50534, May 27, 2011.

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment after a jury found a design defect. The court found sufficient evidence concerning an unreasonably dangerous design and a safer alternative. The opinion is unpublished and expressly limits its precedential effect under Fifth Circuit Rule 47.5. Brochtrup, 2011 opinion.

Preserve the control position, tow-rope arrangement, sightlines from the helm, communications and the injured person's entry location. Do not confuse this stern-drive propeller mechanism with a personal-watercraft jet pump. Any comparison must identify the actual machinery and supported contact sequence.

Chapter 13

Ian Gumbs: reported facts and unresolved questions

ABC7 New York reported that Ian Gumbs, 56, died after an August 14 personal-watercraft incident involving a rental from Swan Marina NYC in Howard Beach, Queens. His wife, Stacey Thomas, was injured and filed a lawsuit alleging gross negligence. Kemberly Richardson, ABC7 New York, report available September 30, 2026.

What the public report states

ABC7 identifies Thomas as Gumbs's wife and reports that the couple rented a personal watercraft from Swan Marina NYC. It reports that they went out with an instructor while wearing life vests and that both entered the water during the incident. ABC7 states that Gumbs died at a hospital. ABC7, Gumbs report.

According to ABC7's account of the lawsuit, the instructor operated nearby and performed a maneuver that allegedly created turbulent wakes. The same report attributes to the lawsuit an allegation of a hole at the front of the craft with white foam visible around it. Thomas reportedly observed that condition after the craft was lifted from the water. ABC7, allegations attributed to the lawsuit.

Thomas described the craft's movement and her husband's movement in the water. ABC7 also reported an alleged postincident statement by the instructor. These are reported witness statements and allegations, not measurements, medical findings or judicial determinations. ABC7, Thomas interview and lawsuit account.

What the reporting does not establish

The ABC7 article does not identify the craft's make, model or model year. It does not provide a medical examiner's determination, a technical inspection, a reconstruction, a court ruling on liability, or a response from the marina. ABC7, Gumbs report.

The report uses propulsion terminology within Thomas's description but supplies no technical findings about the equipment or injury mechanism. ABC7, reported witness description. A technical reconstruction requires identification of the actual machinery and evidence of its operation.

Questions that require primary evidence

• Vessel identity: What craft and other vessels were involved, and what propulsion and control systems did each have?
• Sequence: What do original recordings, witness accounts and physical evidence establish about each vessel's route and each person's movement?
• Condition: What was the craft's condition before departure, during the incident and after recovery? When did any documented damage occur?
• Instruction: What instructions, demonstrations and equipment did the rental business provide? What records document them?
• Controls: What evidence establishes the engine and control states at each relevant time? What was the as-found condition of any engine cut-off device?
• Medical findings: What do the treating records, autopsy, imaging and other primary medical evidence establish about the injuries and death?
• Response: Who observed, assisted, communicated with emergency services and recovered the participants? What reliable timestamps exist?
• Other accounts: What do the instructor, marina, other witnesses and responding agencies report? What evidence supports or contradicts each account?

Primary records

The relevant records include filed pleadings and responses, agency reports, original recordings with metadata, medical records, vessel identification and recovery documentation. Rental records, instruction materials, maintenance documents and incident-date requirements provide the basis for evaluating the rental operation and the vessel's condition.

Chapter 14

Causation, Physics & the Science of Drowning

Causation analysis examines the relationships among the event, injury, conduct, and proposed safeguards. Medical, physical, operational, and legal questions require distinct support. More than one factor may contribute, and an incomplete record may prevent a confident allocation of their effects.

The Physiological Sequence of Drowning

Drowning involves respiratory impairment from immersion or submersion and can progress to cardiac arrest through hypoxia. AHA/AAP, 2024 focused update on resuscitation following drowning. The sequence and timing vary; reconstruct what the medical and scene evidence supports without assuming that every person experienced laryngospasm or the same progression.

Use the clinical findings and accepted drowning terminology rather than “wet,” “dry,” or “delayed” as explanations. Describe respiratory impairment, symptoms, treatment, and outcome. A label does not establish when an injury began or what caused later deterioration.

Fluid Dynamics: How Current, Depth, and Temperature Shape Outcomes

Evaluate current, depth, and temperature as separate physical inputs that may interact with injury and human response. A simplified drag calculation holds other variables constant; actual posture, projected area, and relative motion may differ. Cold exposure also requires individualized analysis rather than a universal temperature threshold or incapacitation clock.

Document how the expert derives current velocity, force, or heat-transfer estimates and how sensitive the result is to uncertain inputs. A force estimate alone does not establish what a particular person could resist or whether the defendant caused the exposure.

Time-to-incapacitation and response analysis

Time-to-incapacitation estimates are one part of the causation analysis. Compare the supported sequence with medical findings, injury mechanism, environmental conditions, flotation, recognition, access, and available treatment. Drowning prognosis requires consideration of multiple factors. AHA/AAP, 2024 focused update on resuscitation following drowning. A gap between a response target and actual recovery may inform the analysis, but does not by itself establish preventability or legal causation.

A pre-existing condition or sudden cardiac arrest does not by itself establish that prompt rescue and treatment would have been futile. Resuscitation guidance addresses cardiac arrest following drowning and emphasizes ventilation and circulation. AHA/AAP, 2024 focused update on resuscitation following drowning. Qualified medical analysis must assess the likely sequence, feasible intervention, and limits of any outcome opinion.

Autopsy findings and their limits

A forensic pathologist evaluates the circumstances, autopsy, medical history, toxicology, and other findings. Distinguish the diagnosis from the proposed sequence leading to death. Explain which findings are specific, nonspecific, or affected by recovery and resuscitation.

A drowning diagnosis does not by itself identify why the person entered or remained in the water. Compare medical findings with physical evidence of current, entrapment, electrical exposure, equipment condition, and other plausible mechanisms. Do not label a proposed mechanism “the negligence” before duty and breach have been established.

Coordinating physical and medical analysis

The medical and reconstruction experts may address complementary questions. Specify the qualifications and evidence supporting each opinion. The medical findings may constrain the physical reconstruction, while the reconstructed sequence may inform the medical differential; neither should be adjusted simply to match the other.

Share relevant evidence and make assumptions explicit. Experts should explain areas of agreement, disagreement, and uncertainty rather than treating consistency as proof. No occupational title or EMT credential alone establishes qualification for every question spanning those disciplines.

Building a Causation Timeline for Trial

A trial timeline should identify the source and uncertainty of each event. Distinguish recorded times from estimates and show where events could overlap. Depict a proposed earlier intervention separately from the observed sequence so the demonstrative does not present a counterfactual as a fact.

Use timeline gaps to identify further investigative work. If a gap remains, disclose it and explain how it affects the opinion. Do not fill missing intervals with unsupported movements, physiological stages, or assumptions about what a person perceived.

The Instinctive Drowning Response

A swimmer in difficulty may be unable to call out or make conspicuous gestures. Do not impose a universal twenty-to-sixty-second sequence on a particular incident. Analyze the signs actually available to observers and the conditions affecting recognition.

The absence of an audible call does not establish either adequate supervision or an unpreventable death. Assess the duties, observations, positioning, and response of each relevant person. A general description of drowning behavior cannot assign fault among them.

Cold Water: Cold Shock, Swim Failure, and Hypothermia

Distinguish cold shock, loss of swimming ability, and hypothermia as potential effects of cold exposure. They need not occur in a fixed sequence or at the same time in every person. Evaluate water temperature, exposure, flotation, clothing, injury, and medical condition through appropriate expert analysis.

A cold-exposure model does not assign a legal duty or determine a person’s survival window. Compare the proposed physiological mechanism with warnings, equipment, access, rescue feasibility, and the governing responsibilities. State where the evidence cannot reliably distinguish among mechanisms.

Reading the Dive Computer and Other Data Logs

Electronic records can help reconstruct events, but their content depends on the device and configuration. Verify sampling intervals, settings, clock offsets, sensor accuracy, and missing data. A dive log may not record gas pressure; a vessel system may not preserve throttle history. Compare electronic records with physical and witness evidence.

Preserve original devices and data through a qualified examiner using a documented method. Identify overwrite risks and necessary power or storage precautions for the specific device. Do not assume that every download is complete or that later use necessarily erases every earlier record.

Explaining technical findings

Explain the reasoning in terms a non-specialist can follow. Use calculations, diagrams, or analogies only where they accurately represent the evidence and assumptions. A quantitative opinion is not inherently more reliable than a well-supported qualitative one.

Keep demonstratives within the support available for the underlying opinion. Identify uncertainty and illustrative elements. Clear presentation cannot cure an unsupported assumption or guarantee admissibility.

Chapter 15

Expert-Witness Strategy

Expert planning should identify the disputed questions, qualifications required, evidence needed, and disclosure obligations. Reassess those needs as the investigation develops.

Early consultation and preservation

Consult an appropriate expert early enough to identify evidence at risk and develop a testing plan. If equipment or the site has changed, document those changes and evaluate the remaining records. Delayed access may limit particular conclusions without foreclosing every reliable analysis.

An initial consultation can identify preservation priorities, plausible mechanisms, and missing information. It cannot be expected to resolve causation within a fixed hour or before essential evidence is available. Separate a preliminary feasibility assessment from a supported final opinion.

What to Send the Expert at Retention

Provide incident reports, medical records, photographs, recordings, operating records, environmental information, and access to relevant physical evidence. Ask the expert to identify gaps and priorities for the particular mechanism. Do not presume that one record is the most important in every case of that type.

Provide primary materials rather than only a preferred narrative. Ask the expert to identify missing evidence and contrary findings. Counsel should assess disclosure obligations, protections, and exceptions while preserving an accurate record of the work.

The Daubert/Frye Gatekeeping Challenge

In federal court, Rule 702 requires the proponent to establish the rule’s conditions more likely than not, including sufficient facts or data, reliable methods, and reliable application. Federal Rule of Evidence 702, amended 2023. Check the governing state rule separately; a recognized scientific field does not ensure that a particular opinion satisfies it.

Identify the basis for each opinion and show how the method applies to the available facts. Address uncertainty and reasonable alternatives. A calculation, published standard, or reproducible test may support an opinion without guaranteeing admission or excluding other methods.

Differentiating the Aquatic-Safety Expert from the Medical Expert

Define each expert’s scope by actual qualifications rather than title alone. Operational standards, electrical engineering, reconstruction, and medical causation may overlap, but each opinion needs adequate expertise and support. Identify the source of any specialist conclusion on which another expert relies.

State which findings each expert relies on and why that reliance is appropriate. Identify limits in the underlying work and disagreements that affect the opinion.

Questions for expert-deposition preparation

Prepare the expert to explain the opinion’s basis, limits, and response to contrary evidence. The following questions address common areas of inquiry without predicting the examination in every case.

1. What are your qualifications to opine in this specific area, and have you ever done this in the real world (taught divers, guarded a beach, tested marina wiring)?
2. What is your methodology, and where is it published or accepted?
3. What materials did you review, and what did you NOT review?
4. What facts are you assuming, and how does your opinion change if those assumptions are wrong?
5. Isn’t it true that your reconstruction depends on estimates rather than measurements?
6. Have you ruled out alternative causes, a pre-existing medical event, the victim’s own conduct, a third party?
7. How much are you being paid, and what percentage of your income is from testifying?
8. Have your opinions ever been excluded or limited by a court?
9. Isn’t your opinion just as consistent with the defense’s theory as with the plaintiff’s?
10. What would you have needed to see to reach the opposite conclusion, and did you look for it?

Preparation should reveal unsupported assumptions and genuine disagreements before testimony. Document the search for contrary evidence and explain how that evidence affected the conclusion. Confident delivery cannot substitute for a reliable analysis.

Video reconstruction and demonstrative evidence

A reconstruction or animation can clarify a supported sequence. Distinguish measured events from estimates and illustrative choices. Do not make an image more definite than the evidence, or assume that a demonstrative will be more persuasive than testimony.

Coordinating with Reconstructionists and Marine Surveyors

Identify the questions for reconstruction, marine condition, electrical systems, weather, human factors, and medicine. Share relevant data and reconcile inconsistent assumptions where the evidence permits. Preserve substantive disagreement rather than requiring specialists to adopt a single narrative.

Consulting Versus Testifying Experts

Consulting and testifying roles carry different discovery consequences. Define the intended role and investigate applicable protections and exceptions before designating the witness. A later designation may affect material generated during consulting work; the initial label does not guarantee continuing protection.

The 2010 amendments to the federal expert-discovery rules extended work-product protection to draft expert reports and most attorney-expert communications, easing but not eliminating the tension. Still assume the testifying expert’s file, data, and assumptions will be examined, and maintain the file with discipline. Make the consulting-to-testifying transition deliberate, documented, and with full awareness of its discovery consequences.

Selecting the Right Expert

Evaluate subject-specific experience, analytical methods, independence, and communication. The relevant combination depends on the questions to be answered. Prior courtroom experience may help assess fit, but it does not establish reliability in the new matter.

Review prior testimony, publications, and exclusion or limitation rulings in context. Determine whether a prior statement addressed comparable facts and assumptions. Do not select an expert for willingness to support a desired position or treat a prior admissibility record as a guarantee.

The Expert’s Report

An expert report should identify each opinion, its factual basis, methods, assumptions, and limitations. Explain the treatment of relevant alternatives and any remaining disagreement. Compliance with reporting requirements does not itself satisfy every admissibility condition. Federal Rule of Evidence 702, amended 2023.

Weak reports share recurring flaws: conclusions without shown reasoning, facts assumed rather than established, no consideration of alternatives, and overstatement beyond what the data support. Each is an opening for exclusion or impeachment. Fix them in the drafting, not at the hearing, another reason to engage the expert early enough to build the analysis properly rather than assemble it on the eve of disclosure.

Chapter 16

Damages & Case Value

Case valuation requires analysis of liability, causation, available damages, defenses, proof, litigation cost, and collectability. These considerations interact; none alone supplies a dependable value.

Wrongful-Death Damages: Maritime Versus State Court

Identify the applicable wrongful-death and survival remedies before developing the damages model. Available categories differ among state statutes and maritime regimes. Analyze DOHSA’s geographic and other coverage requirements and exceptions rather than treating every offshore death as identical.

Location, claimant status, claim type, and governing substantive law can affect damages. Forum choice does not automatically change the applicable substantive remedies. Evaluate damages with jurisdiction, procedural rights, and the merits.

Hedonic Damages in Aquatic Fatality Cases

Determine whether the jurisdiction permits recovery for lost enjoyment of life and how it classifies that loss. Separately research the admissibility of any proposed economic valuation method. Do not assume that a damages label or the victim’s age establishes a recoverable amount.

Economic-Loss Modeling for Young Victims

For a child without an earnings history, explain the data and assumptions used to estimate future economic loss. Address education, employment, work-life, consumption, growth, and discounting only as permitted by the governing law and supported by the record. Present uncertainty and sensitivity to competing assumptions.

For an adult, assess earnings, benefits, household services, work-life expectations, and relevant health or employment evidence. Avoid double counting and distinguish documented contributions from projected ones. The value depends on the evidence and permitted categories, not the existence of a category alone.

Structured-Settlement Considerations

Evaluate a structured settlement’s payment terms, costs, security, flexibility, tax treatment, and the beneficiary’s needs with qualified advisers. Check approval requirements for minors or protected persons under the governing law. Periodic payments do not guarantee an appropriate outcome for every beneficiary.

Using comparable verdicts and settlements

Compare reported outcomes only after identifying the claims, injuries, parties, jurisdiction, fault allocation, damages law, insurance, and procedural posture. Public reports may omit facts or combine categories. A large award in another case does not establish a likely result here.

Distinguish a verdict from a final judgment, settlement, or collected payment. Check post-trial rulings and appeals. Do not infer jurors’ reasons or assign a dollar effect to an expert’s performance without evidence.

Evidence supporting a valuation

Document the available proof for each recoverable category and the grounds for disputing it. Identify assumptions about liability, comparative fault, causation, and collectability. A technical reconstruction may inform those questions without resolving the amount of loss.

Use supported scenarios where uncertainties materially affect the valuation. Explain what evidence or legal ruling would change each scenario. Do not present a prior result as a formula for another injury or predict that jurors will accept a proposed number because they accepted a causation theory.

Categories of Recoverable Damages

Start a damages presentation by cataloging the recoverable categories under the governing law, which varies dramatically between state wrongful-death statutes, general maritime law, and DOHSA. The typical categories: the survivors’ pecuniary losses (lost financial support and the value of lost household services); loss of society, companionship, guidance, and consortium (broadly available in many states, restricted or barred under DOHSA); the decedent’s pre-death conscious pain and suffering (recoverable through survival claims where the evidence supports awareness); funeral and medical expenses; and, where the conduct warrants and the law allows, punitive damages. Chart which categories the governing law permits before building the proof, because effort spent on a barred category is wasted.

A claim for pre-death conscious suffering requires evidence supporting awareness and the relevant interval under the governing law. A general drowning sequence does not establish consciousness, experience, or duration for a particular person. Compare observations with medical findings and competing explanations.

Proving Non-Economic Loss

Where recoverable, relationship loss and conscious suffering require evidence specific to the people and claim. Use testimony, records, and qualified medical analysis as appropriate. Do not assume terror, awareness, or preventability from the manner of death alone.

Present the human-loss evidence without using it to supply missing liability or causation proof. Assess each damages category independently and account for legal restrictions, evidentiary disputes, and potential duplication.

Insurance, Corporate Structure, and Collectability

Identify the responsible entities, insurance, exclusions, limits, endorsements, and other available assets. Coverage and collectability affect practical recovery but do not establish an entity’s legal responsibility. Distinguish a potential source of payment from a supported claim against that party.

Consider recoverable damages and collectability with the merits, investigation costs, and client’s objectives. Limited coverage or a disputed causal theory may affect the assessment without supplying a universal accept-or-decline rule.

Chapter 17

Discovery Checklist & Deposition Outlines

Adapt discovery to the alleged mechanisms, competing explanations, and governing rules. Seek evidence of actual conditions and conduct, including evidence inconsistent with the requesting party’s theory.

Plaintiff Discovery Checklist

• Facility records: operating permits, licenses, health-department inspection reports, and any citations or notices of violation for the three to five years preceding the incident.
• Maintenance logs: pool chemical and pH logs; filtration and pump-service records; drain-cover specifications and installation records (Virginia Graeme Baker compliance); marina electrical-inspection and repair records; vessel maintenance and repair history; dive-equipment service records.
• Incident reports: the report for this incident and all prior incident and near-miss reports at the facility.
• Employee and training records: certifications (lifeguard, divemaster, captain, pool operator), in-service training logs, disciplinary records, and the staffing schedule for the day of the incident.
• Prior incidents: all prior drownings, injuries, rescues, shocks, or equipment failures at the facility or involving the operator.
• Surveillance video and photographs: all camera footage (secure before overwrite), and all photographs taken by staff, responders, or witnesses.
• Physical evidence: the dive gear, the residual gas sample, the vessel, the drain assembly, or the wiring, preserved unaltered for inspection and testing.
• Policies and procedures: emergency action plan, supervision/surveillance policy, safety manuals, and the operator’s adopted industry standards (PADI/NAUI, Ellis, USLA, NFPA 303).
• Data logs: dive-computer download; GPS and engine-data logs for vessels; chemical-controller data.
• Insurance: all applicable liability policies, declarations pages, and reservation-of-rights or coverage-position letters.
• Corporate structure: ownership, management, franchise, and maintenance-contractor agreements identifying who owned, operated, and controlled the facility.
• Weather and environmental data: water temperature, current, tide, and weather for the time of the incident.

Pool Visibility, Lighting, and Supervision Discovery

For a pool incident involving recognition or rescue, supplement the general requests with the following subjects. The list does not exhaust other issues such as medical events, access, or equipment failure.

• Water clarity: the clarity test the facility performed, who performed it, and where it was recorded; turbidity readings; the location, size, and color of the marker tile or main drain used for the test; filtration, backwash, and media replacement records; flow rates and the turnover calculation; algae and cloudy water complaints for the season.
• Lighting: electrical drawings and fixture schedule; lamp type, rating, and inventory; photometric design documents; lamp and lens replacement records for twelve months before and three months after; work orders on underwater lighting circuits; ground-fault tripping history; timer and automation settings; the record of who verified that the main drain was visible from poolside before night operation.
• Glare: the glare assessment from each lifeguard station, any sight line survey, and records of adjustments to windows, blinds, shades, or fixture aim.
• Surveillance: zone coverage diagrams; the safety plan and staffing plan; rotation schedule and break log; time clock records and hours worked in the preceding week; lifeguard certification, license, and audit files; vigilance test results; in-service training logs; disciplinary records.
• Occupancy: the theoretical peak occupancy calculation; admission counts, gate receipts, wristband sales, and key card logs for the day; camera footage showing bather load.
• Detection systems: any computer-aided drowning detection system, with alarm history, coverage map, calibration and maintenance records, and any alarms silenced, disabled, or overridden.
• Barriers and access: fence and gate specifications, self-latching hardware, inspection and repair records, key card or fob access logs, posted hours, and any record of after-hours use.
• Regulatory file: health department inspection reports and citations for three to five years; the plan review and construction approvals; the operating permit; any closure orders.
• Standards adopted: the lifeguard training program manual, the operator’s own policy manual, brand or franchise standards, the emergency action plan, and the insurance application describing safety practices.
• The scene, unaltered: written demand that the pool finish, lighting, fixtures, filtration configuration, and lifeguard stand positions remain as they were pending inspection, with notice before any change.

Defense Discovery Checklist

• Decedent’s history: certifications, training, and dive/boating experience logs; prior aquatic activity and skill level.
• Medical records: complete pre-incident medical history, including cardiac history, seizure disorders, medications, and any condition (e.g., patent foramen ovale) relevant to a competing cause.
• Toxicology: blood alcohol and drug screening from the autopsy.
• Victim’s conduct: witness accounts of the victim’s actions, rule violations, or disregard of warnings and briefings.
• Comparative fault: evidence of parental or companion supervision (in child cases), buddy conduct, or third-party fault.
• Warnings and instructions: proof of signage, briefings, waivers, and releases the victim received or signed.
• Expert materials: Request the opinions, facts, data, compensation, and other materials discoverable under the governing rules. Account for protections and exceptions affecting drafts and attorney communications.
• Damages discovery: the decedent’s earnings, tax returns, employment records, and the survivors’ actual dependency and relationship.
• Alternative-cause evidence: environmental conditions, equipment provenance (third-party gear or boats), and any intervening act.
• Prior claims: the plaintiff’s and beneficiaries’ litigation and claims history.

Deposition Outline: Dive Operator

1. Business structure, ownership, and your role and certifications.
2. Training-agency affiliation (PADI/NAUI/SSI) and the written standards you follow.
3. The specific dive: site, planned depth, profile, and who planned it.
4. Customer intake: how you verified certification and experience for this diver.
5. The briefing: content, who gave it, and what these divers were told.
6. Buddy assignments and your separation protocol.
7. Supervision: divemaster-to-diver ratio and who was watching this diver.
8. Equipment: source of rental gear, service schedule, and service records.
9. Breathing air: source, compressor maintenance, and last CGA Grade E test.
10. Emergency action plan: contents, rehearsal, on-board oxygen and rescue equipment, and what happened after the diver was reported missing.
11. Post-incident: preservation of gear, notifications, and internal review.

Deposition Outline: Lifeguard

1. Certification, license status, expiration, and which program trained you.
2. In-service training: hours per month, who ran it, and what was covered.
3. The surveillance standard you were taught, in your own words, and the response time it promised.
4. Your zone that day: where it began and ended, and whether you ever saw a written zone diagram.
5. Where you were positioned, standing or seated, and your scanning pattern including the bottom.
6. Hours worked that day and that week, your last break, and when you last rotated.
7. What you were doing in the two minutes before the victim was found.
8. What you could see on the bottom of the deep end from your position, and whether anything blocked or reflected your view.
9. Whether you were wearing sunglasses, and whether the sun or a window put glare on the water.
10. Whether you had a telephone, radio, or music player on your person or at the stand.
11. Whether you had ever been told to close or clear the pool for cloudy water or for failed lights, and by whom.
12. How the victim was found, by whom, and what you did next, minute by minute.

Deposition Outline: Aquatic Facility Manager or Lifeguard Supervisor

1. Your role, credentials, and who you report to in the corporate structure.
2. Which health code governed this facility, and which edition you operated under.
3. Which lifeguard training program the facility adopted, when, and what it obligated the facility to do.
4. The zone coverage diagrams: who drew them, when, and how they were validated against the twenty second reach.
5. How you determined the number of guards on duty at any hour, and what governed that decision.
6. The theoretical peak occupancy of this venue, who calculated it, and how it was enforced.
7. The water clarity test: what object, what size, from where, how often, and where the result was recorded.
8. Your written rule for closing the pool for cloudy water, and every time it was used in the last three seasons.
9. Night operation: the required light levels, who verified them, and the check that the main drain was visible from poolside.
10. The glare assessment from each lifeguard station: who performed it, when, and what was changed as a result.
11. Audits and vigilance tests: results, failures, corrective action, and who received the reports.
12. Prior incidents, near misses, rescues, and complaints about clarity, lighting, or supervision.
13. The emergency action plan: contents, rehearsal frequency, and how it performed that day.
14. What changed at the facility after this incident, and when.

Deposition Outline: Certified Pool Operator or Maintenance Contractor

1. Certification held, issuing body, date, and expiration.
2. Scope of your responsibility under the contract, and what the facility retained.
3. The filtration system: design turnover, actual flow, filter type, media age, and service interval.
4. Backwash practice: trigger, frequency, and where it was logged.
5. Chemical testing that day: who tested, when, the readings, and the controller’s state.
6. Every time in the last three seasons the water was cloudy, and what you did about it.
7. Who had authority to close the pool, and whether you ever recommended closure.
8. Drain covers: make, model, certification, installation date, service life, and single or dual drain plumbing.
9. Underwater lighting: fixtures, lamps replaced, circuits disabled, and any ground-fault tripping.
10. What records you kept, what the contract required you to keep, and what is missing.

Deposition Outline: Marina / Boat Operator

1. Ownership, management, and your responsibility for the electrical system (marina) or the vessel (operator).
2. Electrical system: age, installation, NEC edition applied, and ground-fault protection present.
3. Inspection history under NFPA 303 and any deficiencies found or deferred.
4. Knowledge of ESD as a hazard and any warnings or swimming policies near docks.
5. For vessels: maintenance history, safety equipment, and the operator’s certification and experience.
6. The incident: conditions, who was plugged in, what was energized, and what was done afterward.
7. Prior shocks, tingling complaints, or electrical faults reported at the marina.
8. Repairs made after the incident (and preservation of the pre-repair condition).
9. Compliance with the navigation rules (for collision/operation cases).
10. Insurance and corporate structure.

Deposition Outline: Opposing Expert Witness

1. Qualifications, real-world experience, and any gaps (never taught, never tested, never dived).
2. Complete list of materials reviewed, and materials available but NOT reviewed.
3. Every assumption underlying the opinion and the effect if each assumption is wrong.
4. Methodology: is it published, peer-reviewed, generally accepted, or invented for this case?
5. Which measurements and estimates support the reconstruction, what uncertainty applies, and how does the result change across supported ranges?
6. Which alternative or concurrent causes were considered, and what evidence supports, limits, or excludes each?
7. Prior testimony, publications, and any court that has excluded or limited the opinion.
8. Compensation and the percentage of income from litigation.
9. Each specific opinion, pinned down, with the factual basis for each.
10. What evidence, if it existed, would change the opinion, and whether the expert looked for it.

Watercraft and jet-ski evidence preservation

Coordinate vessel preservation with qualified marine and propulsion experts. Address immediate safety and environmental needs while documenting any unavoidable change to the evidence. Use a written inspection protocol before destructive testing or disassembly.

• Craft and components: Preserve the complete vessel, keys, lanyards, cut-off switches, intake grate, jet pump or propeller, steering controls, reverse gate, seats, straps and handholds.
• Electronic records: Preserve available engine-control, navigation, rental-platform, GPS, camera and phone data. Have an appropriately qualified examiner determine what the specific equipment records before promising a speed or throttle history.
• Configuration: Obtain hull and engine identification, build records, manuals, modifications, service bulletins, applicable recalls and preincident photographs.
• Rental transaction: Obtain reservations, agreements, waivers, payment records, staff assignments, briefing videos, translated instructions, renter demonstrations and equipment-issuance records.
• People and equipment: Preserve clothing, flotation devices, damaged straps, rescue gear, medical photographs and chain-of-custody records.
• Route and conditions: Obtain original weather warnings, observed conditions, tide and current records where relevant, route restrictions, wake sources and available shore or vessel recordings.
• Response: Obtain emergency-call audio, dispatch records, responder video, rescue timelines, communications and recovery photographs.
• Condition changes: Identify every person who recovered, transported, stored, cleaned, serviced, tested or operated the vessel after the event.

Deposition outline: personal-watercraft rental operator or instructor

1. Identify the vessel supplied, its model-specific controls, and the documents used to train staff.
2. Describe the predeparture inspection and identify the person who performed it.
3. Identify unresolved complaints, repairs, incidents or operating restrictions for that craft.
4. State the renter's reported experience and explain how the business assessed operating ability.
5. Describe each instruction and demonstration, including passenger position, propulsion hazards, steering, stopping and engine cut-off use.
6. Identify the clothing and flotation instructions given to each rider and the equipment actually supplied.
7. Describe the route, permitted operating area, supervision method, spacing rules and weather cancellation authority.
8. Identify the instructor's location and actions at each time supported by the evidence, without assuming the disputed sequence.
9. Describe the response after the incident, including engine shutdown, communications, recovery and medical assistance.
10. Identify the craft's postincident custodians and every alteration or test.

Deposition outline: manufacturer or design witness

1. Identify the model's propulsion, steering-assist, deceleration and operator-separation systems.
2. Explain the operating conditions under which each system provides assistance and those under which it does not.
3. Identify the design requirements and tests for rider retention, passenger handholds and rearward ejection.
4. Identify the warnings and protective-clothing instructions applicable to the incident model and market.
5. Identify substantially similar incidents and explain the criteria used to assess similarity.
6. Describe any tested alternative design, including feasibility, performance, failure modes and unintended risks.
7. Identify design changes, their dates and stated reasons, subject to counsel's analysis of discovery and admissibility.
8. Explain which electronic data the actual equipment can preserve and what cannot be recovered.

Deposition outline: capsizing, flooding and escape

1. Identify the certified configuration and each subsequent structural or equipment modification.
2. Identify the passenger-load assumptions and any later stability evaluation.
3. Describe passenger positions, fuel, cargo and equipment at departure and immediately before the casualty.
4. Identify every potential water-entry opening and its as-found condition.
5. Identify bilge-pump, alarm, watertight-compartment and flotation records.
6. Describe the weather information received and each decision to depart, continue, turn back or seek shelter.
7. Identify escape openings, covers, curtains, latches and instructions in the actual vessel configuration.
8. Distinguish the witness's direct observations from assumptions about how the vessel flooded or overturned.

Using the Checklists and Outlines

Tailor the outlines to each witness’s role and knowledge. Follow up on factual detail, inconsistent accounts, and the basis for any statement about a standard. Separate direct observation from inference or information supplied by others.

Establish the provision’s applicability and the conduct before asking for conclusions about departure. An admission may support a proposition without resolving its causal significance or the full legal claim. Compare it with the other evidence.

Records-Preservation and Spoliation

Determine what evidence existed, who controlled it, when preservation duties arose, and what happened to it. A missing record can reflect several circumstances. Do not equate absence with negligent operation, intentional destruction, or entitlement to an adverse inference.

Analyze spoliation under the governing rule, including the required state of mind, prejudice, and available remedies. Document preservation requests and the chronology of loss. A preservation letter may give notice, but it does not automatically establish every condition for sanctions.

Model Preservation-Letter Contents

Identify the physical items, electronic data, and records requiring preservation and the people who control them. Request notice and an opportunity to document or inspect before changes where practicable. Address immediate rescue, safety, and environmental needs without demanding that a hazard remain active.

• Relevant equipment in documented as-recovered condition, with a record of unavoidable emergency changes and preservation of removed components where feasible.
• A sealed residual breathing-gas sample from any SCUBA tank before it is emptied or refilled.
• All electronic data: dive-computer memory, vessel GPS and engine logs, and chemical-controller data, to be downloaded before overwriting or battery loss.
• All surveillance and other video, secured before the retention period expires and it is overwritten.
• All facility records: chemical and maintenance logs, inspection reports, service records, staffing schedules, certifications, and incident reports (this and prior incidents).
• Documentation of the site and electrical configuration before avoidable alteration, while qualified personnel isolate immediate hazards.
• All policies, procedures, manuals, and the operator’s adopted industry standards.

State the requested preservation steps and reserve appropriate remedies if evidence is lost. Counsel should assess duties independently of the letter and follow up on time-sensitive items. No letter guarantees preservation or the viability of a claim.

Chapter 18

Case Acceptance & Triage

Evaluate the evidence, unresolved questions, legal requirements, deadlines, likely costs, and potential recovery before accepting or declining a matter. An initial assessment should distinguish missing information from evidence that affirmatively undermines a claim.

Issues requiring further causation assessment

• A medical condition that may have contributed to incapacitation. Assess its actual role and whether environmental or operational factors also contributed.
• The physical evidence has already been altered or destroyed: gear serviced, marina rewired, pool re-plumbed, vessel sold or repaired.
• A reconstruction dependent on uncertain estimates. Determine whether records, testimony, testing, or bounded ranges can support those estimates.
• Toxicology findings whose timing, interpretation, functional effects, and legal significance require qualified assessment.
• An alleged standard violation with an unresolved causal relationship to the injury. Do not assume relevance or irrelevance from the violation’s label.
• Conflicting or potentially interested witness accounts. Evaluate the basis, consistency, and corroboration of each rather than rejecting testimony by category.
• The applicable law (e.g., DOHSA) sharply limits damages, making the economics unworkable even if liability is clear.

Evidence and practical considerations at intake

• Evidence of compliance or departure from applicable requirements, together with its possible relationship to the incident.
• Preserved physical evidence and hard data: an intact dive-computer log, surveillance video, measurable voltage in the water.
• Evidence supporting legally recoverable economic and non-economic losses, without relying on presumed jury sympathy.
• A documented pattern of prior incidents, warnings, or deferred maintenance supporting aggravated or punitive claims.
• A well-capitalized, well-insured defendant reachable through a clean corporate-liability chain.
• A reconstruction that addresses physical, medical, and human factors with supported assumptions and identified uncertainty.
• A governing-law regime (favorable state wrongful-death statute) that permits broad non-economic and society-loss recovery.

Questions to Ask the Client at Intake

1. Exactly where and when did this happen, what body of water, what facility, how far from shore?
2. Who owned and operated the facility, vessel, or marina, and was there any warning or briefing?
3. What is the victim’s relevant history, swimming ability, certifications, medical conditions, medications?
4. What physical evidence still exists, and who has control of it right now?
5. Is there any video, and how long before it is overwritten?
6. Who witnessed the event, and are they available and neutral?
7. Has anyone, the facility, an insurer, an investigator, already been in contact, and what was said or signed?
8. What was the victim’s economic situation and family dependency?
9. Has an autopsy been performed, and what did it find?
10. Has any evidence already been altered, repaired, or discarded?

When to Pass, and Why

Before declining for weak causation, determine which elements lack support and what reasonable investigation could resolve them. A medical condition, altered item, or competing explanation does not automatically defeat a claim. Evaluate the applicable burden, possible concurrent causes, costs, deadlines, and remedies together.

An early expert consultation can identify technical questions and preservation needs. Ask what evidence is still required and what limits apply to the preliminary assessment. Do not treat a fixed consultation period or one calculation as a complete acceptance decision.

Expert-retention terms

Define consulting or testifying scope, compensation, access to evidence, and file-handling obligations in the engagement. Preserve the expert’s independence and ability to reach an adverse conclusion. Clear terms support the work but do not establish the reliability of a later opinion.

Document consulting and testifying responsibilities and any change in designation. Analyze the resulting discovery obligations under the applicable rules. Do not assume that an early consulting role protects all later use of the same work.

A Structured Intake Protocol

Use an intake checklist covering location, parties, deadlines, reported sequence, evidence custody, medical information, legal issues, expertise, cost, and collectability. Prioritize urgent preservation or filing needs rather than imposing a rigid sequence that delays them.

Record the reasons for the intake decision, the assumptions, and material information still missing. Reassess when new evidence or legal developments change those assumptions.

Ethical and Practical Considerations in Expert Retention

The engagement should define responsibilities without requiring a preferred conclusion. Check the applicable ethical, discovery, and disclosure rules separately. A well-drafted agreement does not guarantee compliance in practice, admissibility, or credibility.

Chapter 19

What to Expect from the Investigation

An investigation should document the evidence obtained, methods used, changes to the scene, and limits of the resulting analysis. Its scope and sequence depend on the incident, immediate hazards, access, and preservation needs.

Preservation priorities

Identify time-sensitive evidence promptly and assign responsibility for preservation. Relevant items may include:

• All dive equipment, as recovered, unserviced and unwashed. Regulator testing comes later, under protocol, with a qualified technician.
• A sealed gas sample from the cylinder, taken before the tank is emptied or refilled.
• The dive computer and original available data, preserved and examined by a qualified person using a device-specific method.
• Supervision records: buddy assignments, entry and exit logs, the roll call.
• The rescue timeline: minutes from last seen to recovery, against the operator’s emergency plan.
• Site conditions: visibility, current, temperature, weather.
• The medical examiner’s full file, not the summary.
• For a vessel: certificates, crew credentials, the casualty report, and the maintenance history.
• For suspected electrical involvement: wiring configuration, connected equipment, protective devices, and records, documented while qualified personnel address immediate hazards.

Electronic equipment differs in what it records and how power changes affect stored data. Obtain qualified preservation instructions before avoidable operation, shutdown, or downloading. Document the device’s state and necessary emergency handling.

The Site Inspection

Arrange lawful site access through consent, applicable discovery procedures, or a court order. Define the permitted inspection and testing in a written protocol. Photograph and measure relevant conditions, including witness viewpoints, and identify changes since the incident. A later sightline observation is one part of the reconstruction, not a determination of the case.

Opening and Testing the Evidence

Establish notice, custody, and a documented protocol before testing or disassembly, subject to urgent preservation needs and applicable orders. An exemplar may help evaluate design or performance if its relevant differences are identified. Do not assume the incident item failed or that an exemplar reproduces its history.

Witnesses

Interview witnesses within applicable legal and ethical rules. Identify direct observations, timing estimates, prior statements, and potential sources of bias. A bystander, responder, or former employee is not automatically neutral.

Standards, scope, and applicable editions

Identify each potentially relevant statute, regulation, code, standard, and undertaking. Confirm scope, edition, adoption, and effective dates, including construction, alteration, and operating requirements. No single written standard necessarily defines every aspect of reasonable conduct.

Chapter A

Appendix

Key Federal and State Statutes

The Jones Act (46 U.S.C. § 30104)

Provides a negligence cause of action to seamen injured in the course of employment, with a ‘featherweight’ causation standard, the employer is liable if its negligence played any part, however slight, in the injury. Seaman status is determined by the Chandris substantial-connection test. The Jones Act claim runs alongside the general-maritime unseaworthiness claim and the seaman’s no-fault right to maintenance and cure.

Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq.)

A federal workers’-compensation scheme for maritime workers who are not seamen, longshoremen, harbor workers, ship-repairers, and shipbuilders. Provides no-fault benefits and generally bars suit against the employer, but § 905(b) preserves a negligence action against a vessel whose fault caused the injury. Coverage turns on the status (maritime employment) and situs (covered maritime location) requirements.

Death on the High Seas Act (46 U.S.C. § 30301 et seq.)

DOHSA, 46 U.S.C. § 30301 et seq., may govern qualifying deaths on the high seas. Determine geographic coverage, claimant status, applicable exceptions, and available damages before applying its pecuniary-loss provisions.

Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act (2007)

Review the Virginia Graeme Baker Act, 15 U.S.C. 8001 to 8008, and the applicable implementing regulation. Confirm the drain configuration, cover certification, service life, and any required additional protection. A compliance assessment and a causal opinion address different questions.

Model Aquatic Health Code (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

The national model code for the design, construction, operation, and management of public aquatic facilities. Current version: 5th Edition, posted December 2024, annex revised February 2025. It is not law anywhere until a jurisdiction adopts it, and jurisdictions adopt all, part, or none of it. It comes in two volumes: a code volume that states requirements and an annex volume that states rationale. Cite the code volume for duties and say when you are quoting the annex. Section numbering has shifted between editions, so confirm the pin cite for the edition in force on the date of loss.

International Swimming Pool and Spa Code (International Code Council)

The construction code for pools and spas in adopting jurisdictions. Lighting is Section 322 in the 2024 edition and Section 321 in the 2012, 2015, 2018, and 2021 editions. It contains no standalone water clarity section, handling water quality by reference to the pool and spa water quality standard.

American National Standards for pools and spas

ANSI/APSP/ICC-1 2014 (R2023), public swimming pools. ANSI/PHTA/ICC-2 2026, public pool and spa operations and maintenance. ANSI/PHTA/ICC-7 2020, suction entrapment avoidance. ANSI/APSP/ICC-8 2005, model barrier code, residential only. ANSI/PHTA/ICC-11 2026, water quality in public pools and hot tubs or spas. ANSI/APSP/ICC-16 2017, suction outlet fitting assemblies. The Association of Pool and Spa Professionals became the Pool and Hot Tub Alliance in 2019, so older standards keep the APSP designation and should be cited as issued.

National Electrical Code, NFPA 70, Articles 555, 553, and 680

Identify the NEC provisions applicable to the installation, including marina, floating-structure, and pool provisions where relevant. Grounding, bonding, and protective devices address different electrical hazards. Evaluate device function and the incident fault path separately; code compliance is not a guarantee against every possible injury.

NFPA 303, Fire Protection Standard for Marinas and Boatyards

NFPA 303 addresses marina and boatyard safety, including electrical systems, inspection, and maintenance. Determine the relevant edition, adoption, and provisions, then compare the evidence with those requirements. An alleged departure requires a separate causal analysis.

Quick-Start Checklist for the New Aquatic File

Use the following checklist to identify urgent tasks and assign responsibility. Adapt it to the actual evidence, safety needs, and deadlines; no general list ensures that every preservation risk has been addressed.

1. Send preservation letters the same day to every entity with possible control of the evidence, itemizing the physical items, data, and records to be preserved (see Chapter 17).
2. Identify the case family (open water, pool/spa, SCUBA, ESD, boating, personal watercraft, maritime, cruise, resort) to determine the governing standards and defendants.
3. For maritime matters, run the jurisdiction and choice-of-law analysis before choosing any theory; for cruise matters, read the ticket contract and calendar its deadlines immediately.
4. Secure volatile data: download the dive computer, capture vessel logs, and lock down surveillance video before it is overwritten.
5. Sequester the physical evidence unserviced; for SCUBA, capture a sealed residual-gas sample before the tank is touched.
6. Obtain an early expert assessment of technical questions and missing evidence, without requiring a final causation opinion at intake (see Chapters 14 and 15).
7. For suspected electrical involvement, coordinate documentation and evidence preservation with qualified electrical personnel and immediate hazard isolation.
8. Map the corporate structure and insurance to assess collectability before investing in full workup.
9. Analyze the damages regime (state vs. maritime vs. DOHSA) to confirm the case is economically viable.
10. Make a documented accept-or-decline decision based on causation feasibility and collectability.

Standards Organizations

• NAUI, National Association of Underwater Instructors: SCUBA training and operational standards; instructor certification.
• PADI, Professional Association of Diving Instructors: recreational dive-training standards; determine the course, scope, and edition relevant to the activity.
• SSI, Scuba Schools International: recreational dive-training standards.
• RSTC, Recreational Scuba Training Council: cross-agency minimum training standards.
• USLA, United States Lifesaving Association: open-water and beach lifeguard standards and agency certification. It does not write pool standards, and its guidelines publish no lifeguard-to-patron ratio.
• Jeff Ellis & Associates (Ellis & Associates): the International Lifeguard Training Program, the 10/20 protection standard introduced in 1991, one-year lifeguard licensing, four hours of monthly in-service training, and unannounced facility audits.
• American Red Cross: lifeguard training and rescue instruction; obtain the curriculum and edition actually used.
• YMCA of the USA: aquatic programs and lifeguard training; identify the local program and curriculum.
• PHTA, Pool and Hot Tub Alliance: pool and spa standards and operator education.
• ICC, International Code Council: International Swimming Pool and Spa Code and other model codes.
• NRPA, National Recreation and Park Association: aquatic-facility operator education.
• IES, Illuminating Engineering Society: lighting recommended practices.
• CPSC, Consumer Product Safety Commission: pool and spa product-safety regulation and submersion data.
• ABYC, American Boat & Yacht Council: voluntary safety standards for boat design and onboard electrical systems.
• CGA, Compressed Gas Association: Grade E breathing-air purity specification for SCUBA.
• NFPA, National Fire Protection Association: publisher of the NEC (NFPA 70) and NFPA 303.
• CDC Model Aquatic Health Code (MAHC): national model guidance for the design, operation, and management of public aquatic facilities. 5th Edition, 2024. Binding only where adopted.

Glossary of Aquatic and Maritime Terms for Litigators

Personal watercraft (PWC)

A vessel designed for an operator sitting, standing or kneeling on the craft rather than inside the hull, commonly using jet propulsion. USCG 2024 glossary.

Capsizing

Overturning of a vessel. USCG 2024 glossary.

Engine cut-off switch link

A device connecting the operator to an engine cut-off system, including physical lanyards and qualifying wireless arrangements. USCG, engine cut-off guidance.

Water-jet internal injury

Internal trauma from forceful water entry into a body cavity; distinguish this mechanism from blade contact. Yamaha, 2013 VXS/VXR manual.

Admiralty jurisdiction

For a tort, an inquiry into location and connection to maritime activity. Maritime-contract jurisdiction uses a different analysis; not every maritime claim requires the same location test.

Arterial gas embolism (AGE)

Gas in the arterial circulation. In a diving investigation, evaluate the proposed source and mechanism with the medical findings and dive sequence.

BCD (buoyancy compensator device)

An inflatable component used to adjust buoyancy. Its effect depends on gas volume, weighting, other equipment, and the diver’s actions.

Cold-shock response

Involuntary gasp and hyperventilation triggered by sudden immersion in cold water, capable of causing aspiration within seconds.

Decompression sickness (DCS)

Injury associated with inert-gas bubbles during or after decompression. Remaining within a computer or table limit does not eliminate the possibility. Divers Alert Network, Effective Use of Your Dive Computer.

Electric-shock drowning (ESD)

Drowning associated with electrical incapacitation. Evaluate exposure and medical evidence; absence of burns alone does not establish or exclude the mechanism.

Ground-fault protection (GFCI/GFPE)

Protective devices with different intended functions and trip characteristics. Identify the actual device and circuit; personnel and equipment protection are not interchangeable.

Hydrostatic pressure

Pressure exerted by water at rest, increasing about one atmosphere per 33 feet of seawater.

Instinctive drowning response

A description of observed behavior during difficulty maintaining the airway above water. It is not a universal sequence or an individual timing rule.

Laryngospasm

Involuntary closure of the larynx. Do not assume that it occurred or persisted for a particular interval without appropriate medical support.

Maintenance and cure

A seaman’s no-fault right to living expenses and medical care until maximum medical improvement.

Seaman status

The threshold requirement for a Jones Act claim; a substantial connection, in duration and nature, to a vessel in navigation (Chandris test).

Unseaworthiness

A vessel owner’s non-delegable, near-strict-liability duty to provide a vessel and crew reasonably fit for their intended use.

Virginia Graeme Baker Act

Federal pool and spa anti-entrapment law. Additional-system requirements depend on drain configuration; apply the statute and regulation to the actual installation.

Bather load

The number of people using the water. Distinguish this from an applicable theoretical peak occupancy calculation, which may include patrons outside the water.

Foot-candle

A unit of illuminance, one lumen per square foot. Pool lighting requirements are written in foot-candles at the water surface and deck, and in lumens or watts per square foot for underwater lighting.

Glare

Light that can interfere with visibility or recognition. Its effect depends on the source, surface, observer, and target conditions.

Imminent health hazard

A category used in the MAHC for conditions requiring correction or closure under its provisions. Verify local adoption and enforcement requirements.

Marker tile test

The model code’s clarity test: a contrasting tile, four inches square, or eight inches square in pools over ten feet deep, placed at the deepest point and visible from any deck point within thirty feet.

Nephelometric turbidity unit (NTU)

A measure of turbidity from light scattering. An instrument result and a visual test address different aspects of water clarity; use the applicable requirement.

RID factor

Recognition, intrusion, and distraction: a framework for examining surveillance problems, not an exhaustive explanation for every drowning.

Ten twenty standard

The Ellis and Associates protection standard: scan the assigned zone in ten seconds, reach the person within twenty. The model code adopts the twenty second reach and declines to set a recognition time.

Theoretical peak occupancy

The maximum number of bathers and patrons a venue may hold under the model code, calculated from water surface area and venue type.

Turbidity

Cloudiness associated with suspended material. Its effect on detection requires assessment with lighting, depth, viewing angle, and other conditions.

Utstein definition of drowning

The 2002 consensus definition: the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion or immersion in liquid, with three outcomes, death, survival with morbidity, and survival without.

Zone of patron surveillance

The area assigned to a lifeguard. Verify the applicable requirements for coverage, visibility, and reach time rather than assuming one rule governs every facility.

About Steve Wolf, Full Biography

Steve Wolf’s work includes maritime, drowning, and SCUBA investigations. He is a NAUI-certified SCUBA instructor, a rescue diver, and an experienced Emergency Medical Technician. He holds a B.A. from Columbia University, has written eleven patents, and draws on experience as a private investigator.

Wolf has served as a maritime safety officer, rescue diver, and safety diver on movie sets and on the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team. He holds seventeen FEMA certifications relevant to rescue, incident command, and hazard analysis. His media appearances include CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and NewsNation.

His investigative work examines records, physical evidence, witness accounts, and relevant standards. Each assignment requires an opinion-specific assessment of qualifications, methods, supporting facts, and uncertainty.