Lawsuit: 14 million dollars awarded

[Gleb]

Good points from everyone but its still his fault for not following procedure. Doing a run through the park to inspect kickers and landings is as standard as clipping into your bindings. Its something that you have to do, no questions about it. And if you don't, your IQ drops a couple of dozen points.

No one forced him to go off the jump, I think its simple as that. I do appreicate bumpyride's point of view, but is there some meaning behind "Ski/ride at your own risk" that I'm missing?

[Steve Prokopiw]

I am twenty something and have been hurt pretty bad

Or by my post? :) My risk taking at 42,for many reasons, involves more calculation now than it did in my early twenties and most definitely than in my teens. Yes this guy is 23 and he screwed up.My point is more about the younger riders and how impressionable they are.Nothing signed by someone under 18 is legally concrete and the drinking age is 21.Not that those things work especially well,but they are examples what society has deemed as being capable of making informed and responsible decisions.I am the last person deserving to judge others on the subject of responsibility, and yes,again, this guy is 23. But I think that at the same time resorts are telling people to make their own decisions,they are also putting great effort into enticing young people into more and more hazardous activites and providing easy access to those activities which are only performed with reasonable safety by a very small percentage of the people participating in them.All to generate more revenue.

[Gecko]

not having seen the jumps involved if it was a case of someone trying to "go pro" on a jump not designed for it.

[Neil Gendzwill]

If both parties are responsible then why are they supposed to pay 14 mil.

The lifetime cost was evaluated at 23 million. The resort was partially responsible, so it paid part. That's the way these things work.

[carvedog]

But I think that at the same time resorts are telling people to make their own decisions,they are also putting great effort into enticing young people into more and more hazardous activites and providing easy access to those activities which are only performed with reasonable safety by a very small percentage of the people participating in them.All to generate more revenue

The same logic could be used against certain specialty snowboard manufacturers that regularly post, sponsor and disseminate information about extreme snowboard carving, thus encouraging participants to carve or snowboard above their level and thusly injure themselves forthwith.

And we know how we all feel about that.

Sorry no one here is going to convince me, and the truth is anyone who was not there that day is talking sideways out of their a$$. Inlcuding me.

Back to my original point: these personal injury lawsuits really tick me off.

[Steve Prokopiw]

The same logic could be used against certain specialty snowboard manufacturers that regularly post, sponsor and disseminate information about extreme snowboard carving, thus encouraging participants to carve or snowboard above their level and thusly injure themselves forthwith.

And we know how we all feel about that.

Sorry no one here is going to convince me, and the truth is anyone who was not there that day is talking sideways out of their a$$. Inlcuding me.

Back to my original point: these personal injury lawsuits really tick me off.

Not trying to convince you of anything.Merely stating my opinion like everyone else.;and my opinion on the board manufacturers is that they don't entice babies with candy ,rather consenting adults with passion for what we do ;and the limits a new rider can reach and then pass are far more gradually and patiently worked up to by adults on carving boards,who are more likely to take advice and instruction,and on mostly easy terrain at that.Also,the equipment (marketed to adults and with limited exposure at best)is by no means easy access at possibly thousands$ for new and hundreds$ for used.Not even close to the same logic.

[bobdea]

so I have this board that Bruce built that is really hard to control if you're not on it and I got launched into the woods

should I litigate?

it seems like thats your opinion

I realize it's not cut and dry but people seem to think that their hand should be held for everything and even if it is they still litigate.

FYI you're allowed to join the military to learn to kill people at 18, that qualifies as adult to me.

If you're allowed to blow someone's effing head off you're probably old enough to figure out that you should not bomb a jump you don't know what the landing looks like.

[Steve Prokopiw]

Not sure if you're talking to me but if you are you've missed the point of my reply to carvedog's post entirely.Manufacturers of carving boards are in a very different realm and definitely NOT subject to the logic of my point about marketing to kids.

[LeeW]

Well, the truth is we all dont know what the kicker -really- looked like. i wouldn't say Im an expert in terrain park designs, but well seasoned terrain park maintenance. Like I said before, it truly is an art itself in terms of design with safety precaution in mind and truly basically common sense with some experience under your own belt.

for that matter, i cannot say if its gross neglience 100% til I have seen the kicker myself. long gone, im sure by now. its really hard to have an expert to have an assessement in the park, except for those who have suffered the pain 'n gaining of gettin' the experience in the park. its not really concrete solid black and white on what is "proper" and what is not "proper" but the feel of the flow. trail and error. some get errored pretty badly.

interesting enough, in one of the workshop ive taken in the past, its been shown a higher rate of injuries in the smaller/medium terrain park than the huge one. most likely due to poor jdugement calls (i.e. going way too big in beginning/medium parks). i would say its all "calculated risk" and im making the call it was a poor calculated risk on kenny's side.

ive made poor calculated risk on my part -- i was hauling serious ass on poppifield in the back bowl (well, what can i say? it was my 1st year race training on my rossi world cup 184 and i was damn excited to haul serious speed). well, saw an unexpected ski school class standing in the middle of the trail and i veered sharplyl to the left. end up in mogul field and had a serious nasty wipe out. busted my lead leg's tibia, and i have titainium rod in it. i learned a lesson right there, it's far safer to practice/race on closed course, hence me joining team copper for a while. and i find it a sense of irony that im an advocate of road racing with motorcycles than i am with motorcycling on the street and not practicing my own doctrine on ski slopes. too many variables in the street making a higher probability to get injured. naturally, i swallowed my pride and got my leg taken care of. i had INSURANCE. But that's a total another ball game with this topic but probalay interrelated.

[Guest needanswer]

Here are the comparisons made to a kicker/jump/park posted so far.

• poisonous candy
  
• race course
  
• equipment
  
• icy patch, glazed cord
  
• lake
  

I'll go the more logical route. Parks are ,well, like parks!

A terrain park is like an amusement park. The features of a terrain park are like the rides in an amusement park.

1) Most people , that PAID $$$ to get in , wants to go on all their favorite rides. Saying that a kid don't have to hit a jump is the same as saying to park visitors - you don't have to go on rides , there're always those carni games , $5 per ball.

2) Regarding the dude should inspect the jump. how about the people making the jump should inspect the jump. If any dude can inspect a jump, then it'll be extra easy for an adult staff to do so. From what I'm reading, making jumps are not exact science; doesn't that mean inspecting one is not exact science either. Let the resort park experts build and inspect the jump.

3) Even the worst carni checks your height before you can get on a ride. Perhaps they need less folks directing the lift lines and more folks supervising the terrain park. How about IDs that prove you can land baby jumps all the time before moving on to bigger ones.

When I go to a nice resort, there are more staff at the terrain parks, and in general everywhere. Those staff maintain the jumps , rope off features that are not fixed and keep the folks in check. If a park is too cheap or too poor to hire folks to do maintainence and watch out for their customers, then they shouldn't be making the features in the first place. There are resorts that don't have terrain parks.

On analogies, No, a jump is not like a ferris wheel, but the concept that 1) terrain park features should be maintained and supervised like rides in an amusement park and 2) resorts with terrain parks have the same business models and responsibilities as amusement park -- is the best analogy I've read thus far.

[queequeg]

Beyond the argument of who should or shouldn't sue and or win any lawsuits pertaining to serious injury sustained while snowbarding, I wonder what could be done to prevent this sort of thing. I've never been a particularly big fan of laws that attempt to protect people from themselves (as opposed to laws that try to protect people from OTHER people's stupidity), but in some cases they make sense. I do think they make sense with regards to very dangerous activities, particularly those involving children who rarely consider the consequences of their actions, or adults who never consider the bearing their actions may have on the safety of others around them.

I am KING of the run-on sentence!!!

From what I understand, they had a jump on the mountain that sent you way up, instead of out, onto a flat landing. Anyone who has been in the habit of going big, knows how dangerous a flat landing is from great height. Whether or not the kid was an acting foolishly by hitting the jump (lets say he was), any feature that sends you 32 feet in the air onto a flat landing is ****ing dangerous (and if that's the case, the mountain was stupid for building it).

It seems to me like it would make much sense for there to be a national set of standards for the design of terrain park features, to promote safety, and protect resorts from liability. It seems to me like if there were a standards bureau for the design of the park that described popular types of features, two things would occur:

1. People wouldn't end up injuring themselves (as frequently) due to poorly designed terrain, and those injuries that would occur would most likely be less severe ... because you wouldn't have death-traps that drop you from massive height onto a flat landing.

2. Mountains would be less susceptible to lawsuits resulting from injury or-death so long as their terrain meets the stadards set for the feature, and mountains that build wildly dangerous terrain would be exposing themselves to a certain degree of liability.

3. To assure that things don't get boring, I would hope that terrain features that are unclassifiable by the standards set for terrain would be marked with some kind of visual indicator to the effect of "This is a HAZARD, riding it involves extreme personal risk." (I would also assume that each such feature would still have to be examined and approved by the standards board).

I agree that you take your life in your own hands when you go snowboarding, but to a certain extent the mountain/resort should also be expected to not create terrain that requires 99th percentile skills to navigate injury-free.

Terrain parks are tricky with regards to this of course, because they're usually not very steep, anyone who can slide through their turns on a green or blue run can get through the terrain park (if they just ride around the features, or roll over the tabletops slowly), so it's less daunting to them despite the severe hazards present ... expert *trails* are (somewhat) more daunting to beginners beginners due to the pitch, width and conditions.

Personally, I think some degree of responsibility has to be shouldered by the mountain ... not all, but some. Though I think the vast majority of the responsibility should be on the rider (ski in control, scope things out, know that you could ****ing die doing this), while the mountain should be expected not to create severe hazards (like a jump that drops you from 30 feet onto a flat landing).

Personally, I think you should have to be licensed to ski/ride. Just a simple written exam that you can take at the mountain ... that makes you consent in writing to the fact that you are partaking of a dangerous sport, and that you commit to upholding the skiers code of conduct. A licensing system would also help weed out dangerous skiers and those who are a danger to themselves if properly designed. The first time I went skydiving I had to sigh a zillio release papers that basically said "you could die" and "you will not sue" every way possible in the english language, but I sign no such documents to go skiing. I bet more people die every year skiing than skydiving.

I'm not a big fan of rules and regulations, but I've always though skiing/boarding could do with a teensy bit more.

my 2 cents

Oh, and I agree with those stating the opinion that people on this forum are viewing this issue as FAR too black and white than it actually is.

[LeeW]

Yeah, Whistler's got a seperate pass for those who wants to ride the park specifically, and believe me, those places are not to be taken lightly.

[bumpyride]

This has been a really great thread. We've seen that even amongst a group with common likes and a common sport can have very different interpretations of various situations. We have the added bonus of no one flying off the handle and a lot of back and forth conversations. Cheers for us.

I'm guessing that several here knows some people at different resorts that are in management. I would like to suggest that we drop them a link to this thread and let them see the diversity in opinions we have.

After looking at what everyone has had to say, I can say one thing for sure.

"I'd hate to even try to guess who is going to be on that jury if I was a Ski Resort and getting sued".

[Blackbird]

I feel bad for him, but he definitely is in the runing for a darwin award.

I'm with you Gleb!!

This has been a really great thread. We've seen that even amongst a group with common likes and a common sport can have very different interpretations of various situations. We have the added bonus of no one flying off the handle and a lot of back and forth conversations. Cheers for us.

I'm guessing that several here knows some people at different resorts that are in management. I would like to suggest that we drop them a link to this thread and let them see the diversity in opinions we have.

After looking at what everyone has had to say, I can say one thing for sure.

"I'd hate to even try to guess who is going to be on that jury if I was a Ski Resort and getting sued".

We have differing opinions on this subject but we all share the same love of hardbooting..... I love this place!!!

In the interest of fairness I should mention that I can barely tolerate park monkeys and their attitude to begin with. If it sounds crass I don't care, but a couple less monkeys on the mountain is hardly going to ruin my day. As a group they are the most irresponsible bunch of asswipes on the hill on any given day. If they took all the terrain parks off of all of the mountains it wouldn't hurt my feelings either, except then the little bastards are going to be hitting every blind jump they can find and killing other skiers and snowboarders instead of just ruining their own life.

Carvedog... I've felt like that for a long time... even when I purely softbooted, Terrain parks are rotten... they take runs that skiers and hardbooters can use and they are usually some of the very best runs too....

Personally, I think you should have to be licensed to ski/ride. Just a simple written exam that you can take at the mountain ... that makes you consent in writing to the fact that you are partaking of a dangerous sport, and that you commit to upholding the skiers code of conduct. A licensing system would also help weed out dangerous skiers and those who are a danger to themselves if properly designed. The first time I went skydiving I had to sigh a zillio release papers that basically said "you could die" and "you will not sue" every way possible in the english language, but I sign no such documents to go skiing. I bet more people die every year skiing than skydiving.

I'm not a big fan of rules and regulations, but I've always though skiing/boarding could do with a teensy bit more.

.

Now that isn't a bad idea at all......... licence to carve......

Steve

[queequeg]

Carvedog... I've felt like that for a long time... even when I purely softbooted, Terrain parks are rotten... they take runs that skiers and hardbooters can use and they are usually some of the very best runs too....

They do tend to be the wide/smooth/Blue Runs that are oh-so-perfect for railing on. Always bums me out to see it.

[tex1230]

They do tend to be the wide/smooth/Blue Runs that are oh-so-perfect for railing on. Always bums me out to see it.

just lay some trenches between the hits

[Rob Stevens]

Give it a few years and parks will be history.

The only ones left will be at the Whistlers, Mammoths, Tignes, ect, where you'll have to get a special pass. This would be just like "The Day", when you had to get a special pass just to ride the hill. Some do already, as another poster pointed out.

Despite what people have said in this thread, there ARE specs for building jumps properly. Length and angle of approach slope. Takeoff length and radius. Clearable distance and landing length and angle are all calculable. What will put a bullet in terrain parks is the variables that can be controlled, but will likely be too expensive to. Could you imagine daily "template" style grooming, that had to correspond to spec all the time? How about having to close the park during temperature peaks and valleys, to avoid having boards run too fast / slow?

There is a science to it beyond "eyeballing", but even with the best engineering and a stamp of approval from the Snowboard Corps of Engineers, people will still break themselves off. Maybe, that's why, one day, only pros will get access.

If you like park riding as an amateur, do it soon before you're cut off.

IMO (That's my first internet abbreviation ever... I'm so ******* lost) the amount awarded will help resorts get their s#!t together. If you want the random public to have access, do it perfectly, so as an operator you can stand up in court and defend your actions. Or, don't build one at all. The courts judgment still, however, recognizes that there was "pilot error", too.

Good call to split the settlement, as it was pointed out earlier that without litigation, we'd all be getting shocked to death by electric toothbrushes.

[LeeW]

just lay some trenches between the hits

that's what i do. really.

[Steve Prokopiw]

my problem with terrain parks is the wackos that try to straight line down the hill to get to the park as fast as possible... parks need to patrol the runway to the terrain park for the flatliners. These guys are gonna kill somebody just as fast as hitting a big jump.

The most popular and usable green to blue run on our mountain is on the way to the cutoff to the park.I will not take my kids anywhere near that run when the jibbers are out in force.I actually like riding the park but my two little boys definitely have me noticing things more these days. Man,I'm getting old...old enough to watch my kids grow up I guess;not to mention outlive me.

[Gleb]

Wachusett Mtn also requires you to buy a park pass for $5 and they make you watch a video too. Thats the way to go. Keeping parks around is in our best interests. It keeps more people on one trail and leaves the rest for us.

[Guest flyski]

PMFJI...

Having to watch what I say... Having worked at The Pass for the past 20+ years I have to say I would LOVE to see some "accounting" for what happens...

Who was responsible for hitting the jump??

Who was responsible for checking out the takeoff/landing??

All lawsuits accomplish is making YOUR ticket prices go higher, restrict the amounts of "freedoms" you enjoy on the slopes.

On a seperate note --The "deaths" at The Pass have for the most part 99.9% been due to PEOPLE cutting lines, or GROSSLY overskiing a jump.

Jmo

Pro ski patrol for the past 25 years...

[Gecko]

I was soo happy when the trail with the park opened at my local hill, my favorite run opened up and I was able to run top to bottom at least twice in the time it took the monkeys to make one run. I like parks because they keep bombers and other unskilled clutter off trails that they shouldn't be on in the first place but putting them on what is essentially a skatepark with ice is asking for injuries....acceptance of responsibility for what you do with your body is the only way the parks are gonna stay around...mom and pop ski resorts can't afford to pay for Darwinism regardless of how it it cleans the genepool.

[Guest flyski]

The Summit at Snoqualmie is NOT a "ma and Pa" place... It is owned by Booth Creek (Northstar, Sierra at Tahoe, etc...). It is, as most areas are "self insured"... so this award comes out of the pockets of the owners...

As a "side note".. we USED to have a wonderful mountain bike course in the summer.. but guess what?? the INSURANCE was too prohibitive to keep it open, so GUESS WHAT--IT CLOSED!!!

I AM sorry someone gets injured, but THAT PERSON decided on the speed they "hit" the feature, dependant on THEIR ability level. The Summit didn't "push" the person down that hill--HE DID, therefore HE is responsible.

I LOVE the quote on how OTHERS were injured on this feature as well.. reminded me of the person who sued because they were burned by hot coffee.. when the lawyer was asked why he filed, his response was "well 12 others have sued"--just tells me there are 12 other GREEDY lawyers.

JMO

[NateW]

Interesting, the guy on TGR said BC was insured by AIG.

Pardon the alphabet soup. :)

[LeeW]

Interesting, the guy on TGR said BC was insured by AIG.

Pardon the alphabet soup. :)

Yeah, that's what I read, too. AIG has insured alot of ski resorts and I wonder if AIG's the only one that insures ski resorts (the big corporate ones). And I believe the lawyer's hired by AIG, too. Im gonna go ask my risk safety manager dude and see what he knows of AIG.