The insurance entity of Divers Alert Network has filed a federal action seeking judicial clarification of its obligations to defend and potentially indemnify parties named in a wrongful-death lawsuit arising from the drowning of 12-year-old trainee diver Dylan Harrison (pictured) during a scuba certification course in Texas last August.
DAN Risk Retention Group filed the action on June 16 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, naming the organizations and individuals already party to the Harrison family's civil proceedings.
Those defendants include William Armstrong, the instructor leading Dylan's course, who also faces separate criminal proceedings; divemaster Jonathan Roussel; ScubaToys owner Joe Johnson and NAUI course director Gregory Knauer; The Scuba Ranch, operator of the inland dive site in Terrell where the incident occurred; and certification agencies PADI and NAUI.
Dylan went missing underwater during a descent to a training platform and was later found dead. She had been taking part in an entry-level course at the Scuba Ranch on August 16, 2025. Her parents filed a wrongful-death lawsuit earlier this year alleging systemic failures in instructor supervision, student-to-instructor ratios, diver weighting, emergency response, and oversight by the certification organizations involved.
Reports characterizing the action as DAN suing PADI and NAUI have generated confusion within the diving community. The filing does not seek to determine who was responsible for Dylan's death, nor does it seek financial damages. Instead, DAN Risk Retention Group is asking the court to decide whether its insurance policies require it to fund the legal defense of the defendants and whether it would be responsible for any settlement or damages arising from the case.
The mechanism used is a federal declaratory judgment action, a procedure commonly employed in US insurance disputes that allows an insurer to continue defending insured parties under a reservation of rights while simultaneously seeking judicial clarification of the scope of its contractual obligations. The federal court's role is to interpret policy wording, exclusions, and conditions precedent, and to determine whether the alleged conduct falls within or outside the scope of cover.
On June 26, DAN issued a public statement to address what it described as uninformed speculation.
"Questions concerning liability in the underlying lawsuit and questions concerning insurance coverage are separate legal matters and will be addressed through the appropriate judicial processes," it said. "The filing of the declaratory judgment action should not be interpreted as a statement by DAN regarding the fault of any organization or individual."
DAN added that the decision to seek judicial guidance on insurance coverage obligations "is separate from any assessment of training standards, educational content, agency governance, or professional conduct," and said it remains committed to working with training organizations, dive professionals, and industry partners to advance diver safety and responsible risk management.
A ruling that defendants in the Harrison case are not covered by their insurance policies, before any judgment has been made on the underlying negligence claims, could have a significant effect on how legal risks are managed across the diving industry. Court rulings on policy exclusions may influence the terms and conditions of future coverage and the premiums associated with it.
The breadth of defendants gives the action wider significance than a standard coverage dispute. Determining which parties qualify as insureds under professional liability policies is complicated where instructors, dive centers, training agencies, and independent contractors are all involved under the same policy framework.
If insurers determine that certain training activities present an unacceptable risk, operators and agencies may be required to adopt stricter procedures or higher standards to obtain cover, for example by reducing instructor-to-student ratios when minors are involved, an issue already central to the Harrison litigation.
Armstrong faces criminal proceedings in addition to the civil action. He was booked into Kaufman County Jail on a felony charge of injury to a child in February 2026.
