UKC

Sorry if this is old news, but I saw an article at the weekend which said that the parents of a British climber who died on Everest had won £70,000 in compensation after suing the expedition organisers.
The climber(who's name I've temporarily forgotten) was a young businessman with limited experience who was being guided up. He died on the way down. There were problems with his oxygen supply. He was the subject of a documentary last year.
Sounded like it could be a landmark judgement on liability. Anyone know more?

In reply to john alcock: There have been threads on this before, do a search. I'm afraid I can't remember the name of the climber too though...

Daniel

In reply to john alcock:
.

I would be surprised if it was - however will see what I can find on lawtel (reports legal cases)

In reply to john alcock:

sounds like a right farce, where did his parents think this guy was going for a holiday, Butlins?

if you use o2, you've got to accept that you'll get in trouble if the kit stops working and you can't guarantee much above 26,000 ft.

i'm assuming these people will be donating the money to some kind of nepalise charity,

laterzz

m@

In reply to john alcock:

Michael Matthews 22 payed for a bargain basement priced spot (30,000 dollars instead of double that for a properly guided commercial expedition) on Henry Todds permit in 2000. Henry Todd is (in)famous for supplying dodgy second hand oxygen also at bargain basement prices though you could argue you get what you pay for. MM died on the way down but don't think they conclusively proved it was the oxygen though I believe HT has done a runner (wee bit in the Sunday Times yesterday). HT was also banned from Nepal for 2 years for thumping a journalist and "led" his latest expedition in Nepal by radio from China!
Don't take this as gospel but I think it's mostly correct.

In reply to Stu:

was it a HT expedition on which this guy died, or was it the OTT (now defunct - presuambly as a result) expedition where a guy died and John Tinker flew out to mount a bid to return the body but failed etc?

In reply to Stu:

Not correct. It was an OTT expedition, not Henry Todd's. They bought the oxygen from HT. There was some question about whether the oxygen cyliners mated properly with the sets: the OTT guys made up some kind of adaptor, I think. Never any real indication that these didn't work properly, but it was something Matthews' parents latched onto to "blame".

Something noted in the documentary last year was that Matthews and his colleague had refused to descend to a lower camp for a rest before the summit push, unlike every other team member, because they "knew better" than the guides: they spent, I think, and extra 2 nights at very high altitude, which would have almost certainly affected their strength and reserves of stamina.

In reply to Rob Naylor:

that's what I understood - thanks for the reminder

think Stu's info may well not be correct then?

In reply to Stu: It s not mostly correct its mostly crap!
If your going to slag people off get your facts right don`t just rely on gossip.
Firstly the client was on an OTT expedition not one of Henry Todds.
Henry has supplied oxygen to most expeditions to Everest and the other 8000m peaks for many years. His track record on that score is good.-Given the state of U.S. litigation do you think that U.S. companies would use it if it were dodgy?
His ban for `hitting a journalist` was lifted by the Nepalese govt when the other clients denied that Henry had hit the guy and that the journalist had fallen over(Henry is a very big lad-if hed hit him he`d have stayed down for a long time -not just had a few scratches more consistent with falling over)Steve Venables did an interesting interview with Henry about this (in High I think)
Henry was, I believe, in the UK just the other day
Now it cannot be disputed that Henry had a dodgy past but that was many years ago and was not related to anything to do with the mountains.

In reply to L.A.:
Sunday Times backpage yesterday...
Article headlined "Everest family wins damages" last line, "A fourth defendant, Henry Todd, is thought to have fled to Florida."

Sorry got the expedition wrong - it's a fair cop (and it was 1999 MM sadly died).

Loads of stuff about it here...
http://www.mounteverest.net/news/newspages/toddIII040303.htm

In reply to Stu: Wow somebody on there sure doesnt like Henry- I have to confess that I do.
However checking through the Outside Mag. links from that site it appears that only one couple had complained about the O2 sets. As for Henry smacking the client-he`s always denied it as have the other witness`accounts.
The journalist does however come across as a complete arse.(sticking a camera in my face at B/C and asking -do you have the fever, the summit fever?-Id probably have been tempted to tw*t him)
As for fleeing the country he`s in and out of UK a lot but was around just the other day.
Whatever, it doesnt bring a kid back who`d bought his way onto a trip that was way beyond his limited experience and who shouldnt have been taken just because money was no object.

In reply to john alcock: Surely people have to take responsabilaty for their own actions, after all the guy could of gone off to Stanage and led a climb, without any experience of this kind of climbing, placed some protection wrongly, come off and killed himself. The blame culture that we live in at the moment does not help anyone except the lawyers. Think about what your're about to do, and if something goes wrong you've only got yourself to blame.

In reply to john alcock:
how did they get 70000, was that the expected support they would have got from his earnings?

In reply to michaelw: I think the Sunday Times article is not clear. It says that the parents were "awarded £70,000 damages", but then further down it says that the defendants "agreed a deal". If the case was effectively settled out of court then I believe that no legal precedent has been set, so there's no "landmark judgment". I can't find any other references to this settlement. At the risk of appearing callous, I reckon £70K out of court is a pretty good deal for the defendants - and I wonder what use it will be to the parents?

As for the various articles and polemics about what happened, there seem to be a lot of poorly substantiated allegations, and some truly flaky logic being applied. For what it's worth, there's an Observer article by Ed Douglas about Matthews' death here:

http://www.observer.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,591408,00.html

I can't help wondering, if the expedition organisation was so poor and the oxygen was so unreliable, why did any of the clients decide to go up on summit day?

In reply to Anonymous:

I'd be more inclined to have faith in Ed Douglas's article than the others. I rememebr seeing the C4 documentary, and I was struck by the attitude of the parents who did seem to think that the money that had been paid meant that the trip would somehow be 'safe' and that their son would be taken care of from bottom to top and back again, without having to take responsibility for his own actions. The fact that he chose to disregard instructions to move down from a high camp suggests he thought he knew better than the many who have a great deal more experience that he did.

In reply to Vlad: You did offer to summarise the judgement when it came out on a previous thread, thanks for offering to have a look for it now.

Other threads on this topic are:
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=17596#232043
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=5737#94241
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=5636#92377
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=5514#89879

In reply to Anonymous:


I have been looking on and off but have yet to find an actual Judgment - if it is out of court then I am afraid there is no way of finding out the actual grounds of settlement

In reply to Vlad: That's rather what I suspected.

I'm a bit dubious that there appears to have been no report of this settlement other than in the Times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,2-1507-714402,00.html

They report that the deal was agreed at the High Court in Birmingham. Does this help to track it down at all?

In reply to Anonymous:

No, court orders are not public documents. There will only be anything publicly available if there was a contested hearing and the judge gave a reasoned decision. So there won’t be any precedent in the sense that the court won’t have told us what it thinks about things. There sure as hell will be in the sense that other claimant lawyers know insurers will settle this kind of claim, though.

I can’t really make up my mind whether I think this is a good or a bad thing. I’m all for as many clients as possible dying on Everest expeditions, and I’m all for insurance costs for the companies that run them rising so high they go out of business. So that’s a couple of steps in the right direction, but on the other hand any judgment imposing liability on one mountaineer vis-a-vis another mountaineer is a step on a slippery slope to a hideous future.

In reply to john alcock:

From the Ed Douglas Observer link:

>David Matthews's most sobering and controversial accusation is that Mike Smith, who had joined Michael on the Hillary Step, the last obstacle before the summit, abandoned his client as they struggled down the mountain in the storm that swept across the mountain that afternoon. 'My belief is that Mike Smith saw Michael was slow. He saw the storm coming in, experienced its increasing severity, and decided he couldn't get Michael down.'

I think I've read that before. My question is, if a guide decides he can't get a client down, what the hell's he supposed to do?! That American chap quoted in the other article must be right - it's no part of a guide's duties to sit down in the snow and die with his client.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

I'd be interested to know how it is worded on the agreements that people sign for these types of guided attempts. I would assume that some form of disclaimer is required to be signed.

Anybody have experience of signing or guiding under one?

In reply to Punter Hitch:

No disclaimer is valid to avoid liability for negligence resulting in personal injury or death - see some piece of legislation, possibly the Unfair Contract Terms Act.

Although they may have some effect in assisting the court to decide what liability it was that the organiser took on.

I dare say in fact that expeditions would do well to have skilled legal advice on their documents with a view to trying to avoid this sort of thing. If it were me, I'd have made damned sure the client had signed something which said that our guys are not going to endanger their lives to save yours and specifically that if they can't get you down consistent with their own reasonable safety they're going to leave you behind, that you will not be roped all the time and that if you fail to follow instructions that will instantly terminate the contract and they will not be responsible for the results even if they do continue to assist you beyond that point, and that's just the first few things that occur to me. In short, you may well get killed without it being our fault. I'd have it said in there that our guides are only human and they are more likely to make mistakes at altitude like everyone else does. Having had these things signed probably oughtn't to make a difference, but in practice I bet it does. They really ought to get them drafted properly by someone who's had experience both of how daft judges can be and preferably also of what high-altitude mountaineering involves. And I expect they have. Not.

In reply to Punter Hitch:

I think Jagged Globe are some kind of sponsor of this site. I'm sure they'd let you have a copy of their disclaimer. The UKClimbing Editor, or whatever Tom B's called, can presumably assist.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:
From OTT brochure 1998 for the Everest trip march-May 99
8 EXPEDITION HOLIDAYS -WARNING
8.1You accept and acknowledge that mountaineering expeditions are by their nature likely to involve actual risk and danger to life as a consequence of(but not limited to)the hazards of travelling mountainous terrain,accident or illness in remote places(lacking proper medical facilities) animal attacks the forces of nature and the like. Such serious dangers and perils may endanger your life You are urged to give very careful consideration to the personal risks to health and safety before the booking form is signed and returned to OTT expeditions.
8.2Under no circumstances do we give any assurance or make any prediction as to the success or otherwise in reaching a summit in the event of mountaineering expedition holidays nor do we accept in any circumstances whatsoever any responsability in the event of failure to reach a summit on such holidays.

Comments please.

In reply to L.A.:

Speaking as a lawyer - embarrassingly inadequate. If I were advising an insurance company whether to insure these people I'd suggest they didn't. Assuming that's the only relevant document, of course.