LEGAL BATTLE Are trade groups liable when users are injured?

An institute that sets standards for construction and use of pools is under fire.
WASHINGTON POST
When Shawn Meneely launched himself in what he called a "suicide dive" into a backyard swimming pool, it changed his life forever. In an instant, he slammed his head into the bottom and was left a quadriplegic.
After a lengthy court fight, Meneely won $11 million in damages from several defendants, chiefly $8.8 million from the National Spa and Pool Institute in Alexandria, Va., a group that for several decades has set voluntary standards for the construction of pools, diving boards and other equipment -- standards that Meneely's lawyers successfully argued were lax and unsafe and led to Meneely's accident.
Eleven years after Meneely's dive into the pool at a friend's grandfather's house in Washington state, the ripples continue to spread. The case raised basic questions for the hundreds of trade groups and professional societies that set guidelines for the manufacture and use of their products.
The pool institute, which contends it is not responsible for whether its members follow the standards, filed for bankruptcy protection in 1998 after losing the Meneely case. It emerged in March 2000, but in late August sought bankruptcy protection again after four more lawsuits, making the same claims as in the Meneely case, were filed.
A watershed case?
Donald Purcell, chairman of the Center for Global Standards Analysis at Catholic University, said: "When you look at Meneely, it sounds significant. There's a feeling that it's a watershed case of some sort. But it's happening in the midst of a wide range of opinions."
Purcell said some courts have ruled that trade groups that set voluntary standards are responsible for the measures they call for even if they have no oversight of manufacturing. But, he said, other courts have said such groups are not liable "because they do not have a duty of care to the customer of the product like there would be for the manufacturer."
None of the four new personal injury cases has gone to trial, and the pool group contends that the claims against it are groundless. A provision of the federal bankruptcy law halts, at least temporarily, ongoing litigation when an organization files for bankruptcy protection, as did the National Spa and Pool Institute.
"We deny these claims," said Stephen Gallagher, the pool group's Alexandria bankruptcy lawyer. "We believe we'll prevail. We think the Meneely case was an anomaly. We hope to resolve these lawsuits without litigation. But even a lawsuit that's frivolous has its costs." The filing for bankruptcy protection "gives us a little breathing room," he said.
The tactic angered lawyers for the accident victims.
David Smye, a Hamilton, Ontario, attorney who represents a teenager who was left a quadriplegic after diving into a 31/2-foot-deep, above-ground pool at a friend's house when she was 12, said: "I'm a bit bewildered. There's no judgment against it. One would have to be skeptical. Their motives are strange."
In its latest standard for in-ground residential pools, adopted in 1995, the institute suggests a variety of standards for the minimum depth of the deep end, ranging from 7 feet, 6 inches to 9 feet, depending on the length of the diving boards (6 to 12 feet) installed at the pools and how far the boards are above the water (20 to 40 inches).
Peterson said that during discovery in the Meneely case, he found a variety of documents showing that the trade group had been warned in studies it commissioned or by outside researchers that at least one of its suggested depths for residential pool construction, 7 feet, 6 inches, could be too shallow if a diving board were also installed.