Gymclimber mag - Auto Belay related lawsuit

amarius wrote:

Gym Climber published an article discussing personal responsibilities in gym setting - https://www.gymclimber.com/the-gumby-guru-injured-its-probably-your-fault 

It has a bit of relevant information regarding the autobelay incident - 

In that case, it may be his insurance company that is driving the suit.

PRRose wrote:

In that case, it may be his insurance company that is driving the suit.

No - they would only in the rarest case seek to recover actual cost - likely too low here to trigger anything.  This is almost certainly a lawyer buddy, and likely triggered by butthurt over something we’ll never know. He’s a piece of shit, regardless.

This Gym Climber article is uninformed speculation and likely unhelpful to everyone involved.  Another earlier article said he’d been certified to use the device.  

Was the text in question written by the AutoBelay manufacturer, or was it gym policy? If it was the manufacturer, then I hate to say it, but that's on the gym. They should have been aware of their idiotic manual and bought from a company that doesn't have such ridiculous paperwork attached to it. Now is the guy suing, a tool? Yeah, he is, but the gym should have been very aware of any potential liability from using any products they leave out for the public. Hopefully this AutoBelay company will be forced to change their manual before anyone else brings a suit.

SinRopa wrote:

The language in their manual about “constant supervision” is obviously designed to keep them from being the target of these types of lawsuits.  I don’t see why they’d change it, or how they could be “forced” to do so.

I think a lot of people would be surprised how many products have this type of language.  The manual for a commercial restaurant toilet I’m looking at now says that all use should be supervised...

"Forced" would mean that no gym buys them ever again until that happens.

I'm going to flush myself down the toilet and then sue the facility for not having anyone in the stall with me! Thats hilarious, and if thats the case, sounds like this guy doesn't have one.

An interesting case.  I used to be a member at VW, but now at another gym. The liability waiver my current gym makes you sign includes both an indemnity in favor of the gym (i.e., you indemnify the gym against any claims made by you or your estate against them - you are literally insuring them against those claims) and an attorneys' fees provision that would require the plaintiff to pay their costs in defending against the claim. Taken together, this creates a huge barrier to bringing a suit against the gym.  I'm not sure if VW's waiver includes the same provisions, but it seems very likely as these are both considered "must haves" in these types of agreements in WA.  I predict the plaintiff will drop the suit before trial, without receiving a settlement payment. 

Bill Schick wrote:

No - they would only in the rarest case seek to recover actual cost - likely too low here to trigger anything.  This is almost certainly a lawyer buddy, and likely triggered by butthurt over something we’ll never know. He’s a piece of shit, regardless.

This Gym Climber article is uninformed speculation and likely unhelpful to everyone involved.  Another earlier article said he’d been certified to use the device.  

Have you read the complaint?

Anybody else receive an email about this recently.

Slim, Please elaborate. thanks

Wow, I hope this dope loses BIG TIME.  What an ass.  He screwed up.  Own it.

Looks like this is done. Six million settlement, with one million being paid by VW pcva.law/news/seattle-climb…

I’m not sure if this ties in or not, but the gym I frequent had all their auto belays pulled down last night. Said it was related to a recall notice they received that afternoon. I do not not the model of the auto belays used. 

The incident, which occurred on August 1, 2019, at Vertical World’s Seattle gym, was caused by a combination of factors including alleged defects with the auto-belay device, improper supervision by Vertical World staff, and inadequate training for climbers by Vertical World. Despite using the device properly, the climber fell when the auto-belay device failed to function as intended.

The lawsuit uncovered that C3 was aware of defects in the equipment. C3’s auto-belay devices, known as the “Perfect Descent,” were sold despite a history of defects with the auto-belay retraction springs. As part of the settlement, C3 Manufacturing has agreed to pay $5 million, and Vertical World will pay $1 million.

[...]

The injuries sustained by the climber included 12 pelvic fractures, a sacral fracture, a left radial fracture, fractured ribs, bladder laceration, a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and lung injuries. He endured multiple surgeries and was wheelchair-bound for months with lasting impairments.

Investigations conducted by Darrell’s legal team revealed that C3’s president, Ronald Naranjo, seemingly ignored a history of defects with the auto-belay devices despite prior knowledge of their dangers. The devices had a history of unintended defects dating back to 2015, and in 2016, C3 issued “stop use” and “return for repair notices” but seemingly failed to make effective changes.

Additionally, Judge Suzanne Parisien of King County Superior Court imposed sanctions of nearly $300,000 on C3 and its attorneys for their misconduct during the legal proceedings. Just months before trial was scheduled to begin in Seattle, C3’s entire legal team withdrew from the case and was replaced with new attorneys from the Lewis Brisbois law firm. It was revealed that the prior attorneys who had withdrawn from the case withheld evidence concerning misrepresentations about the product defect history.

(emphasis added) 

From the link posted by Adam Lewis above. This is a press release from the plaintiff's attorney. But the characterization of the accident is a bit different than what was reported in GymClimber a couple years ago. 

Nkane 1 wrote:

(emphasis added) 

From the link posted by Adam Lewis above. This is a press release from the plaintiff's attorney. But the characterization of the accident is a bit different than what was reported in GymClimber a couple years ago. 

Yeah, if this is true than pretty much every single person in this thread is eating crow. If this is true, C3 shouldn't be making auto-belays and they should all be pulled down and all of you are chumps for publicly criticizing a fella who got beyond fucked up for using an auto-belay in the right way after the company ignored defects and then got fined 300k for withholding evidence in the trial and had to dump all their lawyers. If this is true. Especially those of you who said he was fine, like how the fuck did you know that with enough conviction to post it publicly? Ain't no one fine after those injuries. 

Most of yall wouldn't ever side with the big corporations, but suddenly when the big corporation is an auto-belay manufacturer for your precious social club (I mean climbing gym)... if this is true I hope they go bankrupt af. 

I don't know how much Vertical World should be liable, doesn't seem like a faulty auto-belay should be on them, but I think that's the gym that had the coach that had relations with multiple minors. Maybe this is their karma, I'd probably just stay away. 

As an engineer who geeks out on engineering failures, I would love to know more technical details about this.  And yes if the above press release is accurate then C3 should burn.  You don't get to play that game with safety critical devices.

So, is this following statement not true regarding the incident that originated the lawsuit? Even if the C3 device has known defects, there is no way those could be the cause of this "detached" carabiner, which was the true cause of the 30' fall of the climber, correct? 

A closed, intact carabiner was found at the top of the wall attached to the auto-belay line

Just A Climber wrote:

So, is this following statement not true regarding the incident that originated the lawsuit? Even if the C3 device has known defects, there is no way those could be the cause of this "detached" carabiner, which was the true cause of the 30' fall of the climber, correct? 

I am not a lawyer, but this could merely a statement of fact, and doesn't shouldn't imply that the carabiner detached while the climber was climbing. Could be the first thing gym staff did after the fall was unclip him, which if the auto-belay system started working again, would immediately retract the clip all the way up to the device.

Likewise, the rest of the quote "According to Johnston, a nearby climber reported that they saw Vandivere attempt to clip in before heading up the route." suggests that he clipped in (either properly, improperly, or not at all), but not what happened in between that and when the carabiner was found at the top of the wall.

John Tex wrote:

Yeah, if this is true than pretty much every single person in this thread is eating crow. If this is true, C3 shouldn't be making auto-belays and they should all be pulled down and all of you are chumps for publicly criticizing a fella who got beyond fucked up for using an auto-belay in the right way after the company ignored defects and then got fined 300k for withholding evidence in the trial and had to dump all their lawyers. If this is true. Especially those of you who said he was fine, like how the fuck did you know that with enough conviction to post it publicly? Ain't no one fine after those injuries. 

Most of yall wouldn't ever side with the big corporations, but suddenly when the big corporation is an auto-belay manufacturer for your precious social club (I mean climbing gym)... if this is true I hope they go bankrupt af. 

I don't know how much Vertical World should be liable, doesn't seem like a faulty auto-belay should be on them, but I think that's the gym that had the coach that had relations with multiple minors. Maybe this is their karma, I'd probably just stay away. 

You just said "if" a lot. Please go back and re-read the statement from the plaintiff's lawyers. How many times does it use "seem" and "alleged"? They can allege a lot and now it's never going to be proven in court. If you're sued and you know you're right you might still decide to settle because you just can't afford the time and money to fight it through.

I am not sure what "big corporation" is involved here either. And I'm not sure we should be "siding" with personal injury lawyers.

The settlement marks a significant step towards holding accountable those responsible for putting the safety of climbers at risk.

This seems like a bad deal for C3, VW, and climbers.

For the gym liability, it's not that surprising. Currently the autobelay manual says:

Climbers must be under constant supervision by a trained operator. Before ascending the wall, operators must check to verify that each climber has:
o Properly fit and secured climbing harness.
o Properly clipped their harness onto the Perfect Descent Climbing System carabiner.

Read literally it means the gym staff is required to constantly watch you and check that you've clipped in every lap. Obviously this wasn't done.

In 2021 C3 released a "Supervision notice" basically saying the supervision section obviously doesn't make sense for this use case and they would update their manual soon, but it doesn't seem that actually happened.
https://www.perfectdescent.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/20210409-PD-Supervision-Notice.pdf

The C3 liability is pretty murky. I think the press release is carefully worded and probably quite misleading.

The lawsuit uncovered that C3 was aware of defects in the equipment. C3’s auto-belay devices, known as the “Perfect Descent,” were sold despite a history of defects with the auto-belay retraction springs.

It doesn't allege these defects caused the accident. It also doesn't say that C3 was aware of the spring defect. It also doesn't say C3 sold products knowingly with a defect. Yet a careless reading would lead you to think all 3.

The recall was for the retraction spring not working (so taking up slack, the actually stopping/lowering has never had problems as far as I can tell):
https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2020/C3-Manufacturing-Recalls-Perfect-Descent-Climbing-Systems-Climbing-Belay-Devices-Due-to-Fall-Hazard
https://www.perfectdescent.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/20191021.2-PD-Retraction-Spring-Notice.pdf
https://www.perfectdescent.com/product-notices/

In 2016 they previously recalled them and just repaired the springs. This time they added a 2nd spring for redundancy. This seems like obvious lawsuit potential, but at the same time the recall said "no reported accidents pertaining to the retraction spring" which is specifically worded.

The incident, which occurred on August 1, 2019, at Vertical World’s Seattle gym, was caused by a combination of factors including alleged defects with the auto-belay device, improper supervision by Vertical World staff, and inadequate training for climbers by Vertical World. Despite using the device properly, the climber fell when the auto-belay device failed to function as intended.

I don't know how this description could be self-consistent. It's also not consistent with the early reports of the accident. It is consistent with the recall, since the release says the accident was caused by "alleged defects" which could be something unrelated to every other defect mentioned in the release (none of the other defects are only "alleged"). It really seems like C3 just paid to make this go away, possibly to prevent stuff from becoming public, despite the autobelay not actually failing here.

Eric Fjellanger wrote:

You just said "if" a lot. Please go back and re-read the statement from the plaintiff's lawyers. How many times does it use "seem" and "alleged"? They can allege a lot and now it's never going to be proven in court. If you're sued and you know you're right you might still decide to settle because you just can't afford the time and money to fight it through.

I am not sure what "big corporation" is involved here either. And I'm not sure we should be "siding" with personal injury lawyers.

The settlement marks a significant step towards holding accountable those responsible for putting the safety of climbers at risk.

This seems like a bad deal for C3, VW, and climbers.

It is telling that they *can* go out and allege all these things. My meager experience says that most often parties agree to not talk further about the incident as part of the settlement process. For that not to be part of this one means either more incompetence or C3 was really, really worried about discovery being made public in trial.

Isn’t this the place with the pedophile youth coach?