6 • March 11 - 24, 2016 • The Log


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Coastal Commission need not explain why, they can simply do


Re: Editorial: California Coastal Commission plays it close to the vest (Feb. 26 issue). The executive director serves at the pleasure of the commissioners and can be removed at any time. The com- missioners don’t have to explain their actions on personnel mat- ters. All we need to know is that Lester was no longer meeting the needs of the commission and was let go. The “why” doesn’t matter and is not the public’s business.


LPurcell


Submitted on TheLog.com I recognize that sign!


Re: Coastal Commission ouster spawns new legislation (Feb. 26 issue). Hey- that’s my sign at the bottom, “Coastal Protection Don’t Change Direction.” Thanks for this article, and please don’t over- look the timeline: Oct. 2015, Coastal Commission sets condi- tions on SeaWorld San Diego’s tank expansion, namely, no more orca breeding. A scant three months later Executive Director Charles Lester gets the boot for no apparent reason. Developers


and oil companies have hated the Coastal Commission forever, but this has never happened before. This is about a dying cir- cus called SeaWorld in their last ditch attempt to stay alive. Please join us on Facebook at: Take Back the Coastal Act and sign the peti- tion to Gov. Brown at: bit.ly/1pufWMa


Joey Racano, director, Ocean Outfall Group Submitted on TheLog.com


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The Log: Are giant megaships actually a strain or burden on ports? Re: USA Today story, tinyurl.com/jpf8ta3


Jerry Clanton: This is B.S. ... let- ting shipping companies dictate the spending of tax dollars to accommodate their monstrosity of a vessel. It's the same black- mail game the sports owners play -- build us a new stadium, or we'll go somewhere that will, and 10 years later they're back! Enough is enough, if they want to build these behemoths let them pay for the infrastructure to support them.


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Fast Facts: Sailing/Yachting at the Summer Games


The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is a few months away. Sailing, which was also referred to as Yachting, has been a part of almost each Summer Games since the 1896 Olympics in Athens, Greece. Below are a few interest- ing tidbits of the Sailing event.


Top 5 Medals (Country) United States, 59 total (19 Gold, 23 Silver, 17 Bronze) Great Britain, 54 total (25 Gold, 18 Silver, 11 Bronze) France, 38 total (12 Gold, 11 Silver, 15 Bronze) Sweden, 35 total (10 Gold, 12 Silver, 13 Bronze) Norway, 31 total (17 Gold, 11 Silver, 3 Bronze)


Medals won by Former Countries Prior to Unifications or End of Regimes Soviet Union: 12 total (4 Gold, 5 Silver, 3 Bronze) West Germany: 7 total (2 Gold, 2 Silver, 3 Bronze) East Germany: 6 total (2 Gold, 2 Silver, 2 Bronze) United Team of Germany: 3 total (1 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze)


Hong Kong: 1 total (Gold)


Top Sailing Medalists (Athletes) – All-Time Ben Ainslie, Great Britain: 4 Gold, 1 Silver (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012)


Paul Elvstrom, Denmark: 4 Gold (1948, 1952, 1956, 1960)


Jochen Shumann, Germany: 3 Gold, 1 Silver (1976, 1988, 1996, 2000)


Sailing In Absentia Sailing was not an event at the inaugural Summer Games in 1896 (Athens) and again in 1904 (St. Louis).


Sources: sailing.org/Olympics, Olympics.org/Sailing


Yacht clubs and the ‘Assumption of Risk’ By David Weil, Esq.


Q


I am chairman of the race committee at a yacht club in


California and we have spent a lot of time over the past few months talking about the pos- sible liability of the club in the event of an accident during a race. Most yacht clubs include some kind of waiver in their entry forms, but we have learned that U.S. Sailing frowns upon those types of waivers. To complicate things, some of our members have questioned whether that kind of waiver would be enforce- able, while other members contend that all participants in a sport such as yacht racing assume the risk of injury just by their participation in the sport. Can you provide some guidance?


cussing the “Assumption of Risk” doctrine and liability waivers in a maritime context, but we don’t have that kind of


A


We could spend a semester in a law school class dis-


time so I’ll try to provide a basic overview in this column. The “Assumption of Risk”


doctrine provides a defense against a lawsuit where the injured party knowingly par- ticipated in a dangerous activ- ity, and was injured in a way that he or she could reason- ably have expected to have been injured. These cases usu- ally arise in the context of an employment or sporting or recreational activity. So if a lion tamer who is employed by a circus gets bit by a lion, he can’t sue the circus for put- ting him into the ring with a dangerous lion. The doctrine sounds sim- ple enough, but application of the doctrine can be compli- cated when the scope of risk within the activity is ambigu- ous. For example, looking at our lion tamer, he could have anticipated the risk of a bite from the lion, but what if he was injured instead when the circus tent collapsed? Assumption of the risk does not provide a defense where the injury was outside of the reasonably anticipated risks


associated with the activity. The doctrine will provide a defense in a yacht racing con- text, as long as the race took place on California waters. And that’s where things really start to get complicated. he defense is available if the race is held on a landlocked lake that is located solely within one state. However, the Assumption of Risk doctrine does not provide a defense if the incident occurred on navi- gable waters subject to Federal Admiralty Jurisdiction. Admiralty law (also known


as maritime law) has evolved over hundreds of years, and it exists primarily to provide a set of rules for maritime com- merce and navigation. It did not evolve to service the needs of the recreational boating community, but we are nonetheless subject to those rules even if their application sometimes leads to an unusu- al or unfair result. The treat- ment of the Assumption of Risk doctrine under maritime law provides an example of this anomaly.


On Board With Johnson by J.R. Johnson See ATTORNEY page 19


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