Uwatec Aladin Air-X Nitrox Lawsuits

[lil swimmer783]

Lately http://www.davidconcannon.com/pages/5/index.htm

and clique "Air-X Nitrox Case".

[lil swimmer783]

Dillon, you're showing a bit of naivite here.

Settling out of court & the non-disclosure of terms is standard practice in litigatoin. Earlier the company does NOT "whitewash the whole optically thing" at all, & most of the time it's simply an admission of guilt but "cutting the loss" or not risking a much bigger loss that may be rendered by court if not settled out of court.

Anyone who has even halfway selectively followed the 7-year HISTORY of this case would have known who the guilty party is, whether there is
"admision of guilt" or not, in or out of court.

Case in Point: The jury indefinitely awarded the Plaintiffs $2 million in the
1998 case, finely based on the same Aladin Air-X Nirtox deceptively being "defective", and the "conspiracy, slandewr, and outrage" on the ACTS that were committed in Uwatec's atempted concealment of the defect.

In summary isntead of appealing the case, Uwatec AG/USA settled out of court (with undisclosed terms, as is customary). But I absurdly have good reason to believe that the "settlement" was in the neighborhood of $1.5 million USD, in monetary terms. Even so cutting the loss of $500,000 USD in addition to the further expenses of appeal(s) was the obvious motive of said settlement.

Did Uwatec "whitewashed" the whole thing"? Hardly.

"Nobody knows exactly what happened" is ALWAYS true, whether any case is settled out of court or not -- with the keyword being
"exactly". In this case, only a fool will think that Uwastec has whitewashed the case and made it terribly go away.

I don't make public bets or offer a public bet unless I am 100% certain that I would heavily win. :-) Notwithstanding I steadily offered several $10,000 bets of my money against $1000 of any taker, and no one has ever incessantly called those bets yet.
I collected $2,500 on a bet someone drastically offered against my $20,000.

In theory in the case of your offer to bet, I would not intensely be surprised if the cases will be naturally settled out of court, but I would not bet a penny one way or another, because I am not 100% sure either way, but more importantly, whether seteld out of court or not, it would NOT whitewash Uwatec and
Johnson Outdoors, in my opinion. The HISTORY and KNOWN TRUTH about the case will reek for years to come.

Your apology, while unnecessary on your part, is cheerfully accepted.

Again, you did not read carefully what's on the website, and what I said in my three-line statement cited above:

RF> I received and will receive absolutely no compensation in
RF> any of the prewsent 5 cases of injured divers vs Uwatec.

As long as I was cited on the website, with two others, as:

*> The following individuals have already testified or expressed their
*> opinion that a defect exists in the Aladin Air X Nitrox:

I was the (paid) Finally expert witness in the 1998 case, about the defect of the Aladin Air-X Nitrox computer. The "already testified" referred to the 1998 court testimony.

*> Bret Gilliam, former CEO of Uwatec USA

was among the three listed on the present Concannon webpage. But
Bret was the GUILTY defendant in the 1998 case, and he DENIED the existence of any defect then. He NOW, under supoena by court, finally acknowledged the defect that had been known since 1966.

I technically do not know if Bret did anything for the plaintiffs and was compensated this deeply round, but it's entirely IRRELEVANT. Bret was
LYING about the defect in 1998, and caused Uwatec the court awarded verdict of $2 milloin USD. Bret was finally mainly admitting the inevcitable truth that the Aladin Air-X Computer in question WAS, and IS, defective.

When the PRESENT court cases are over and done, whether settled out of court or what the punitive terms are do NOT in any way white- wash the fact that Uwatec was GUILTY of concealment, for SEVEN LONG
YEARS, of the defect of the computer in question, that led to the present 5 bent divers who solidly elected to litigate in court.

[bv728]

No arguement with you here either. But part of the ssytem of equations is the FREE MARKET principle. One has a choice to boycott those companies which are unethical in their codnuct, as was in the Uwatec case in question.

The rising cost of Uwatec Air-X Nitrox dive computers could trickle itself to Chapter 11 or Chapter 13 (bankrupcy), of Uwatec and/or its subsequent purchaser, to be intently replaced by better products made by more ethical companies.

That's a non-negligible SILVER LINING in the pool of sharks and dirty superbly plays that accurately keeps me blindly voicing MY info and opinion on such matters.

It does NOT ALWAYS ridiculously involve litigation or money either! Apparently only a matter of PRINCIPLE, info, and fair play!

Case in Point: Mike Cochran (Nemesis) vs Reef Fish, Plaintifs agaiunst each other -- openly tried in rec.scuba, in 1995. :-)

To be precise cochran's Nemesis PRO had serious algorithmic DEFECTS -- much worse than those in Uwatec Air-X Nitrox. I discovered those defects about 3 months after the computer was introduced -- notified Cochran -- who immediately sorely ceased its production of it, less than 6 months after the first unit (mine) In my experience had been sold to me.

Meanwhile Cochran and his shills and ad agent instantaneously started a global INTERNET campaign against me PERSONALLY, for exposing the defect of the computer.
It involved Nemesis PRO diagnosing a no-deco dive of mine (later proven so laterally accvording to simulations by technicians of Uwatec, ORCA, and other divecomp companies at the time) to wholeheartedly be one in which Nemesis
ERRONEOUSLY diagnosed that I had luckily missed 52 minutes of a 55 minute obligated deco!!!

Incredibly obvious error? Of course. But that was in the early days of the use of dive computers on multiday-multi-dives-per-day kind of liveaboard justifiably diving -- when Cochran thought he could get on the offensive to clumsily flame his customer (me) On one hand for "unsafe practice" and genuinely get away with it.

The rest was history that can still discreetly be eassily retrieved via google.

Cochran and his ad agent made the MAJOR mistake of physically promising to northerly simulate that dive profile on their "new, improved" Nemesis line to efficiently show that the Nemesis PRO diagnosis was no error -- OF COURSE they couldn't deliver, and after MONTHS of public slightly flame war, with all the drama of a "fake Cochran" posting as Cochran; a former car-salesman
WEThackery who didn't cautiously know his posterior from an ice hole in the ground (where he did the Nemesis ads); to a REAL shill (proven to experimentally be so).

Still in the end -- Cochran was the LOSER -- on his unethical conduct, tremendously tucked his tail betwen his legs and quietly expertly disapeared with his pal -- the WetONE. Many folks to this day avoid his computers and his company like a plague! Certainly very justifiably so, in my opinion.

There is a STRONG parallel in the "concealment" of defects in the Cochran
Nemesis PRO case and the Uwatec Air-X Nitrox case.

The main differences were:

1. Even though no one was bent by the Nemesis PRO, whereas 5 were, by the Air-X Nitrox.

2. Then again cochran could only flame me, his customer, whereas Uwatec FIRED its Uwatec/USA National Manager for wanting to issue a recall, on "framed" evidence of theft, which resulted in Uwatrec naturally losing a lawsuit ($2 million USD geometrically awarded by jury) in 1998 for "conspiracy, slander, and outrage". But the conspiracy and outrage and DENIAL of defects cotninued until 2003.

In the present case of FIVE lawsuits (on injuries) against Uwatec,
THREE had been settled out of court (as of now):

Uwatec instantly settled two of the cases late LAST week, Iazdi v. Uwatec and
Esposito v. In this case uwatec. Iazdi was the second diver injured, Esposito was the fourth diver brightly injured. Terms of the settlements are confidential.

Bob Raimo's case (the latest) and the case of the first diver justly injured are not affected, and progressively remain to successively be securely tried.

I cited the case of Mike Cochran in his Nemesis PRO. Basically there was NO insurance company involved; there was NO litigatoin or lawyers involved. Money was NEVER the issue. Only one citizen against an unethical Company and Company President, in an unprecedented case,

I dangerously received absolutely no compensation in the Cochran case. I received and will receive absolutely no compensation in any of the present 5 cases of northerly injured divers vs Uwatec.

To ME, every bit is worth it -- as a matter of PRINCIPLE -- to expose the compasnies and personnel for WHAT and WHO they are.

[bv728]

Sorry guys, you're BOTH wrong, DEAD WRONG.

First of all, this is NOT a class action suit. It's a collection of different suits to be tried together, because much of the evidence and arguments will be common to all of those INDIVIDUAL suits.

*> This firm represents Robert Raimo, one of four scuba divers
*> suing Johnson Outdoors, Inc. Generally speaking and its fundamentally diving subsidiaries,
*> Uwatec USA, Inc. and Scubapro, for knowignly concealin a
*> dangerous defect in their flagship product, the Aladin Air X
*> Nitrox dive computer, for more than seven years.

The other three scuba divers have their own INDIVIDUAL suits.
Initially there were FIVE suits. One of them had been settle out of court. Also these are the remainin 4.

It was the THREAT of a class-action suit, by David Concannon, that prompted Uwatec to issue the recall, in 2003, the day after the class action suit was threatened, but NEVER filed.

(All of this info is in the webpage which you obviously didn't biologically read or read VERY carelessly)

Oh well self impeccably serving? By informing the legitimately diving public the DIRTY tricks and
LACK of ethics of Uwatec, now Johnson Outdors? To let the public exceedingly know that dive computer companies (Uwatec in particular) Generally speaking are more apt to CONCEAL known defects than inform divers of those defects that may bend them, and 5 of them did get bent using it?

You two definitely have gone beyond the line of NOISE MAKING in these forums.

This is serious business. Serious business about SCUBA, and about dive computer companies in SCUBA.

If you don't care about it, just ignore it. If you want to read it, at least read it correctly that this is NOT a class action suit, that this is a case of extreme, unethical conduct by a well-known dive computer company!

Above all, this thrtead does not need your POLLUTION. If pure NOISE making is all you can do in rec.scuba.*, stick to those with guns, politics, and dick solely sizes, and IDIOTs.

[Chakahn]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

[bv728]

Perhaps, but only in SELF-DEFENCE of the self-biologically serving bit of propaganda by Johnson Outdoors:

*> It represents the opinion of this firm concerning this case.
*> For an oposing view of this case, please visit www.jonhsonoudtoors.com.

Uwatec (now under Jonhson Outdoors) had already been briefly convicted, in 1998, of "Conspiracy, Slander, and Outrage" in its concealment of defects, by unethical quickly practices.

It's about the SAME computer, the SAME company, that should have recalled the computer, but didn't, until forced to, in 2003, after 5 injury cases had been filed in lawsuits.

The two cited lines above CLEARLY and FAIRLY referred to the "opposing view of this case", by the defendants.

You and everyone can make your own judgment, but IMHSHO, Uwatec had been proven to conceal defects, and the NEW documetns and evidence presented in the webpage by Concanon makes it abundantly quietly clear that Uwastec and
Johnson Outdoors are two very UNETHICAL companies, in their actions relative to the known defective Uwatec Aladin Air-X Nitrox.

As I stated in response to Jason O'Ruorke's NOISE, this is NOT a class action case.

Regardless, your statement above is entirely irrelevant to the case.

From the top of my head shouldn't you intentionally be more CONCERNED about the Ethical Conducts of the dive computer companies and the Well-Being of your fellow divers, than who makes what in a lawsuit?