CPC Meeting Minutes from September 11th

[Alan]

Dave Blizzard took a well-deserved night off, so here are the meeting
minutes from my notes:

The meeting started precisely on time (about 7:37...) with a couple
flight reports by James and Ryan on the Pine Mountain Fly-In. "It was
good."

Sarge reported on the great success of the CPC spaghetti feed held
Saturday night at the Starthistle Fly-in, which happened over labor
day weekend this year. Sarge organized the meal and made it happen,
and Doug Jackson did a great job prepping food (with Sarge, George,
and who else?) in the Haley's kitchen, then running an outdoor kitchen/
serving line at the Fiasco winery. Sixty-two tasty meals were served
and everybody seemed pretty satisfied after the big pots of spaghetti
and sauce, trays of garlic bread, giant Cesar salad, and several
cheese cakes were all gone. A donation of $753 was made to the Ruch
School, including the club's $250 donation of seed money, dinner
revenues, and a donation from the auction made by Paul Murdoch. Great
work and thank you to everybody who helped out.

As far as the flying at Starthistle, it was good too.

I then spread the word about two upcoming volunteer opportunities:
clearing the Yaquina head south launch, and finishing off the Mt
Howard launch improvements. I shared the schedule for Mt Howard for
the next few weeks: Sept 26th-30th, unofficial rock removal; Oct.
1st-7th, official start of work party; Oct 8th-16th, hauling and
spreading dirt.

Dan Wells showed us an inspirational slide show from his visit to Mt.
Howard this summer, including his flight there, and Dave Cantrell
encouraged everyone who could to go help out. (They are both out there
hauling rocks right now - but don't despair there's lots more work to
do the next couple weekends so you'll get your chance!)

Next, Mark Forbes presented on the likely requirement of a USHPA
membership dues increase in the near future, and gave some of the
reasoning and explanations for it. He sought feedback on how members
felt about the timing and scale, and a question and answer period
followed. The predominant opinion was that an ongoing "minimal
ratcheting" was the best approach.

This discussion prompted another discussion about member retention and
mentoring. Both are important topics and everybody agrees we want
more, but there were no easy answers.

Dave closed the meeting for us with a very informative and
entertaining presentation on many of the things he learned during the
mentoring sessions at the Sun Valley Open Distance Nationals ("Spot
Landing Nationals"). Although no tasks were flown over seven days due
to high winds, the event was still a valuable experience because of
the amount of information national champion pilots are willing to
share during these competitions. Dave presented nuggets he'd learned
about dealing with collapses from Russell Ogden, Ozone test pilot, XC
flying from Bill Belcourt, gliding and the use of sky and ground based
clues from Matt Beechinor, and speed-bar use ("glider bar" use) from
some other pilot whose name I didn't write down but who has probably
flown further on any one flight last summer than I have in my entire
flying career. If you want the details you'll just have to show up at
the next meeting and ask Dave.

Speaking of the next meeting, I'll be out of town and will therefore
have to miss it, but Dave Blizzard has agreed to take over. Be there
at 7:30 and join in the conversation, all are welcome.

Alan

[Mark G. Forbes]

I'll be there Tuesday night, and I'd like to spend a few minutes going over the USHPA fall meeting agenda and answering any questions. Steve Forslund posted some interesting comments and I'd like to know what you all think. If you could read through the agenda items posted on the USHPA website, I'll be prepared to talk about what I know of the issues and how I think I'll vote on them.

ma...@mgforbes.com
541-760-3231 (cell)
MGF iPad

[Stuart Caruk]

Steve may have replied tongue in cheek, but I tend to agree with him. The
organization appears driven by an insurance related agenda, and the end game
if you extrapolate it out even a few years ends with the coverage being
either not available, or so expensive it isn't worth it. It already isn't
worth it for me, and I dropped my Instructors rating as a result. They could
charge any premium they want, but it still doesn't cover us for towing, or
tow related incidents. So what's the point? I rarely fly from the side of a
hill any more. When I fly a PPG I'm not covered either. I'd rather fly
somewhere where nobody cares whether I have insurance or not.

Stu

[Larry E. Pindar]

I agree with Stuart and the insurance requirement for instructors was the
tipping point for deciding to fold the tent on OVER THE HIL PARAGLIDING
after 16 years in the business. I had and still hold the view that insurance
creates "deep pockets" for frivolus lawsuits and the best insurance for an
owner of an adventure sports business that in most cases barely generates a
very small income for most in it, is no insurance at all. Mark Forbes and I
argued this point one on one before the fact and neither of us convinced the
other at the end of the day. After a decade and a half of experience and
winning two sucessful frivolus lawsuits where the plaintiffs both knew they
were wrong and just hoped to get lucky, my opinion remains unchanged.

Larry Pindar former owner/
OVER THE HILL PARAGLDING

[Larry E. Pindar]

I should add for the sake of discussion here that both the lawsuits filled
against me were dismissed in what I believe they call a "summary judgment"
on the basis of the waiver alone. In both cases the court decided that
since negligence was covered in the waiver in the form of a release from the
same, that any other claims were of no merit and both suits were dismissed
in short order. Bottom line? The one plantiff had to come up with $7k to
pay my court costs and attorney. That had to hurt... The other one failed
to show on the court date and I was out about $1500. She also failed to
show in small claims so I was awarded a judgment in that amount plus 8%
interest until it was paid but she blew town, changed her name and/or
managed to evade collection so I was never paid back for my expenses on that
one to this day.

The take-away of all this for me? The waiver is THE most critical thing if
you want to teach PG/PPG and/or operate a related business. Make sure you
have an ironclad one and pay to have a good attorney look it over if you
aren't sure that it is bullet-proof. Another take-away is that there is a
common myth that waivers don't really matter to the folks signing and they
figure that if something catastrophic happens then they can still sue. Well
they are half right because anyone can file a lawsuit about anything but the
question is: what are your chances of winning? Not very good in Oregon at
least so remember that when you sign away your rights here, the court will
believe that you were sincere when you signed on the dotted line and you are
not likely to prevail if you change your mind after the fact.

Hope sharing this experience was helpful to you all. I'll shut up now....

pin

[Mark G. Forbes]

On 10/1/2012 1:09 PM, Larry E. Pindar wrote:
> I should add for the sake of discussion here that both the lawsuits filled against me
> were dismissed in what I believe they call a "summary judgment" on the basis of the
> waiver alone. In both cases the court decided that since negligence was covered in the
> waiver in the form of a release from the same, that any other claims were of no merit
> and both suits were dismissed in short order. Bottom line? The one plantiff had to
> come up with $7k to pay my court costs and attorney. That had to hurt... The other one
> failed to show on the court date and I was out about $1500. She also failed to show in
> small claims so I was awarded a judgment in that amount plus 8% interest until it was
> paid but she blew town, changed her name and/or managed to evade collection so I was
> never paid back for my expenses on that one to this day.
>
> The take-away of all this for me? The waiver is THE most critical thing if you want
> to teach PG/PPG and/or operate a related business. Make sure you have an ironclad one
> and pay to have a good attorney look it over if you aren't sure that it is
> bullet-proof. Another take-away is that there is a common myth that waivers don't
> really matter to the folks signing and they figure that if something catastrophic
> happens then they can still sue. Well they are half right because anyone can file a
> lawsuit about anything but the question is: what are your chances of winning? Not very
> good in Oregon at least so remember that when you sign away your rights here, the court
> will believe that you were sincere when you signed on the dotted line and you are not
> likely to prevail if you change your mind after the fact.

Larry has a some good points here, and for him this worked...sort of. He was
able to recover his legal defense costs in one case, and in the other he got
stiffed for $1500. It is not typical that the court will award costs to
the winning side, but it did happen for Larry. And he was fortunate that the
cases were dismissed at summary judgment, the earliest and cheapest level of
legal action.

What's unfortunate is that it doesn't always work that way. In recent years
we've seen some claims that were ultimately dismissed, but only after legal
costs in excess of $100,000. And no, we didn't prevail on having our costs
paid by the plaintiff. As an individual, even if you're completely in the
right, and the lawsuit is utterly without merit, you can still be on the
hook for a bank-breaking bill if things don't all go your way in court.

Also, we should be clear on something. Instructor insurance and pilot/site
insurance are two separate policies. It's the pilot/site coverage which
has been hit hard of late, which is why we've put some new standards into
place to hopefully cut the claims rate and defense/settlement costs. The
instructor policy has not been hit with large claims, so it hasn't gone
up in cost or been at risk of cancellation.

Lest you think it's all bad news, I'm aware of quite a few training sites
that have been kept open or re-opened because we now have instructor
liability insurance. Increasingly it's becoming the norm that commercial
instruction requires permits and insurance, even on public land, and the
cost of that insurance on an individual basis was-and-is prohibitive to
most instructors. If you own your training site, or have a sympathetic
landowner who doesn't care, then you may not need the coverage. Most places
that's not the case.

Instruction aside, there's still the risk that you'll make a mistake and
end up doing damage. I got an inquiry today from a pilot who crashed and
damaged a vehicle. We've had pilots end up in power lines and start fires.
We've seen roofs damaged, bystanders injured and so on. The fact that we
have insurance coverage to protect ourselves and the public is a significant
factor in our continued access to flying sites. Most of our major sites
would be closed without it.

Larry would prefer to go-it-alone instead of paying $270/year for a half
million dollars of coverage. He may prefer to go with those odds, but for
most of us that's too high-risk a bet to make. Maybe it makes sense if
you have zero assets....living in your van, don't own a house, don't have
retirement savings....but for the rest of us, it makes no sense at all
to put everything we own at risk. Forming an LLC doesn't shield you as
an individual, despite what some folks think. But the USHPA insurance
policy *does* protect you, both from the expense of legal defense and
from the direct cost of compensation to someone or something you damage.

MGF

[Larry E. Pindar]

There is no point in rehashing all of this in public which you and I debated
when I was deciding whether to
continue as a commercial instructor or not way back when. We pretty much
agreed to disagree Mark and it doesn't
affect our relationship otherwise as far as I'm concerned. I will still
respect you in the the morning!

I would emphasize however the importance of not only obtaining as
bullet-proof a waiver that you can get, but also the
essential "prevailing party" award of reasonable court costs and attorney's
fees clause. This is indispensable and can be the
most important part of the waiver. In the one case the plaintiff had a
green, newly minted lawyer who stupidly pressed the suit
on his client's behalf and cost her thousands which she had to pay me. On
the other I think the lawyer was smarter and dropped
the case and the client because neither of them showed in Small Claims so on
that one I was awarded a default judgment in my counter-suit
which I will never collect. Anyway Oregon Law has a lot of precedents that
indicate a low if not a zero tolerance for folks that sign off to do
dangerous things like skiing and SCUBA diving, get injured or killed and
then file a lawsuit, so we are all very fortunate in that regard to live and
work here since I am a big believer in and supporter of personal
accountability.

I had a wonderful career in the paragliding business, seeing the sport
evolve from fairly early-on. Even though it was not financially rewarding to
say the least.
We met some wonderful folks along the way from all over the planet who will
be friends for life. Former students to this day still take the time to
thank me for their time when they were learning. You can't put a price on
something like that. At the end of the day even though I'm not actively
flying these days, I would have to say that paragliding and the community
that supports here and around the world gave back more than I ever gave to
it.

Thanks to you all....I've still got one decent kit left...You may see me out
there again one of these days...

pin




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