The student waiver appearing on the NSS-CDS website for the past few years was intended to be more of a dive site waiver than a teaching waiver. As such, if created the potential for a plaintiff’s attorney to claim is it too broad in scope. Therefore, we have updated the waiver to address these issues.
- The new waiver has places to list the student’s name and the names of any instructors and dive centers within the body of the waiver itself.
- When students sign the waiver, it is now clear they are waiving the right to sue the named entities for damages.
- The new waiver also includes a paragraph addressing the risks associated with COVID-19.
Hopefully, the availability of an effective vaccine will make the nightmare of the past year little more than a bad memory. However, for those who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, there are diving-related risks that may continue for years to come.
The new waiver is a fully-interactive Adobe Acrobat PDF.
- You can open the waiver in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Acrobat Pro and fill in the student’s name, your name and the names of any other instructors or dive centers.
- You can then email the waiver to students well in advance of the course. They can sign the waiver digitally in Acrobat and mail it back to you.
It’s important students have the opportunity to read and sign the waiver before they:
- Pay you any money.
- Purchase any equipment.
- Take any time off of work.
- Spend any time reading or studying.
- Spend any money or time on travel.
In other words, students must be able to read and decide “No, this is not for me…” without losing any prior investment to time, money or effort. If they do not, an attorney can always claim students signed the waiver under duress. This can invalidate the waiver completely.
You can download the new waiver from the NSS-CDS website. Discard any previous versions of the waiver use only the new waiver in its place. Refer any question about the new waiver to the Training Chairman.