Come on! Expert’s will say anything sometimes.

If the lawsuit were over a drowning because the lifeguards did not arrive in time, would you testify the kayaks should have been kept closer to the beach?

A woman whose leg was broken when she was hit by a rescue kayak that had floated away lost her lawsuit this week. The surf was rough and a rescue kayak floated away hitting the grandmother with enough force to break her leg. She sued and her lawsuit was dismissed by the court.

What struck me in the reports on this case was the testimony of the expert witness. (An expert I have met.) The testimony was about good risk management practices. The expert testified that good practices would have kept the kayaks farther up the beach, so they would not float off. The defendants testified the kayaks were kept on the beach, so they would be accessible quickly.

I work as an expert witness. My credibility is the number one thing I have. If you cannot support your opinion with research, experience and a straight face, you should not be testifying.

Sometimes you have to turn down a case because it is a load of crap. I have turned down more cases, then I have accepted, believe me as the holidays roll by I wish that was not true. However, if I do not believe, in my opinion, or if my opinion is full of crap then I cannot testify.

What are the chances that someone could be hit by a kayak that floated away with enough force to break someone’s leg. I am not a good with statics (and lousy with English as you all know), but I am guessing it is rare. If something is that rare, you do not have it in a risk management plan or even worry about it. The classic risk management issues are you look at those things that have a high frequency or a high severity. If something occurs rarely or occurs with no injury, you ignore it. This fits in the ignore category so it is not a good “risk management” evaluation to worry about incidents with low frequency and low severity.

If your risk management plan is so deep that it covers issues this rare, you need to quit and open up another business. You are spending everyday worrying about the minutiae and have never opened your doors. Your plan is not a document, it is a treatise, and only you will ever look at it let alone be able to implement it.

Another argument made by the plaintiff is the city should be liable for her injuries because the city used kayaks instead surfboards or whaleboats for the rescue boats. Whaleboats are heavy, big, take 5-7 people to handle, and would have killed this woman if one had hit her. Kayakers are more stable and faster than surfboards. So slow, expensive and time consuming or unstable are the two options presented by the case.

If this woman had been in the surf drowning would she want to wait for enough crew to assemble to launch a whaleboat and row out to her or wait for an unstable surfboard to eventually get to her and work their way back.

The judge saw through the smoke and mirrors and stated “that moving the kayak further away from the surf or tethering it to the stand was contrary to its primary purpose of giving lifeguards “the instantaneous ability to attempt to save a life.”

If not we would have been in a constant battle between saving someone and not injuring someone who does not need saved.

We need more signs, idiots need not engage in this activity.

See Court: Sea Isle Not Liable for Beachgoer’s Broken Leg