June's second-tier Tallinn Circuit Court's guilty verdict entered into force in respect of the Tervise Paradiis water park in Pärnu and Gert Kuusik, who worked there as a lifeguard.

Both the club and the lifeguard were found guilty of causing death by negligence, and while they had appealed the ruling, the Supreme Court declined to hear it.

The circuit court sentenced Kuusik to one year and three months in prison, suspended if Kuusik commits no further offense during a probationary period of one year and six months.

OÜ Tervise Paradiis was fined €50,000 as a result of the ruling.

On March 11, 2023, a man drowned at the water park in Pärnu after being pushed into a four-meter-deep pool. According to the charges, the visitor found himself in distress but did not receive timely assistance that may have saved his life. More specifically, prosecutors accused Tervise Paradiis's senior lifeguard of assigning a staff member who was regularly employed in an administrative capacity to deputize for an absent lifeguard, despite that replacement employee lacking the training and skills required of the job.

The ruling followed an appeal from the Prosecutor's Office after the first-tier Pärnu County Court acquitted Tervise Paradiis and Gert Kuusik in January 2025.

Initially the Tallinn Circuit Court upheld the acquittal, but the ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court by the prosecutor, and on rehearing the case the guilty verdict was reached. The defendants' appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected, meaning the circuit court judgment is now in force.

New lifeguard rules were announced for all pools from January 2026, widely seen as a response to the case.

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