A veteran diver takes on a diving injury case

CASE TYPE: Products liability, negligence
CASE: Bolour v. Santa Barbara Aquatics, No. 01035364 (Santa Barbara Co., Calif., Super. Ct.)
PLAINTIFF’S ATTORNEY: Mohammad R. Nadim, Law Office of Mohammad R. Nadim, Santa Monica, Calif.
DEFENSE ATTORNEYS: Rick Lesser and Michele Nelson Bass, Lesser & Associates, Redondo Beach, Calif.; and Tom Shapiro, Monroe & Shapiro, Los Angeles.
JURY VERDICT: For the defense

RICK LESSER’S PHONE number is 1-800-DIVE-LAW. His license plate is DIVELAW. His Web site, perhaps the only law firm site that links to beach cams, is www.divelaw.com.

Lesser’s four decades of diving experience and nearly 30 years of diving defense work served him well when he went to trial against a man claiming brain damage from a diving accident. "This case always smelled funny to me," said Lesser of Lesser and Associates of Redondo Beach, Calif. "You can smell when an accident just doesn’t seem right."

The plaintiff, dry cleaner Faramarz Bolour, claimed that this diving equipment-made by Lesser’s client, SeaQuest-malfunctioned about 10 minutes into his dive in 24 feet of water. Forced to make a rapid ascent, he suffered an arterial gas embolism that left him brain-damaged.

To support his claim, he had photos that he said were taken at the beach on the day of the injury and the manual he’d received at the dive shop in 1997 when he bought the defective inflator. Lesser had his suspicions about both.

The photos showed few people behind Bolour and his diving buddy at 11 a.m. on a sunny Sunday in July 1999. But Lesser thought that the beach at Refugio State Park should have been more heavily populated. Lifeguards’ records proved him right. They estimated about 3,000 people at the beach at the time Bolour claimed the photos were taken.

The SeaQuest manual also caught Lesser’s eye. He noticed that it had a 1996 copyright and listed the company’s address as Coustea Court in Vista, Calif. But he knew that the company, a longtime client, hadn’t moved to that site until late 1998. Lesser’s research showed that the manual Bolour claimed he’d received in 1997 was actually printed in 1998.

Yet in depositions and on the stand, Bolour refused to acknowledge the growing inconsistencies. The 18-day trial as riddled with witnesses for the plaintiff’s contradicting previous testimony.

"There was so much impeachment, it was too good to be true," said Tom R. Shapiro of Monroe & Shapiro in Los Angeles, who represented the dive shop.

The defense had offered Bolour $65,000. He wanted $2 million. His attorney, Mohammad R. Nadim, asked the jury for $10 million.

The jury deliberated for five hours after hearing 18 days of evidence. It found 10-2 for the defense on product defect and 11-1 for the defense on negligence.

Nadim of the Law Office of Mohammad R. Nadim in Santa Monica, said the defense won "by being able to distract the attention of the jury from the case itself." He said he will appeal.

(edited transcript)