Reader comments
Liability waivers at winter resorts have legal teeth

All sports and their inheriant risks should be the sole responsibility of those participating in sports activities, as the law says. In todays world of the types of sporting events many of the ametuers should not be participating in them. Sport activities do require a lot of training and skills that can only be learned with professional help. Todays people are not very well suited to many of the winter sport activities and risks inheriant with these sports because they don't know what the risks are. They lack the common sense and any skill at sports to be able to understand the risks. Skilled and trained people in these sports also learn how to handle a fall without injury as well as how to participate. Even with that training the risks are very high as equipment also fails causing many serious injuries. All winter sports are dangerous but the public is driven by advertising and displaying of professionals with many years of training. Training is conducted year round for these professionals and their bodies are conditioned to meet the chalenges of the sport. For this reason, resorts should be held more accountable for enticing and luring untrained and unskilled participants.

Sounds like the courts are making the right calls--while expecting high safety standards from ski resorts, they also realize that accidents happen and resorts cannot be responsible for every little accident.

There are (obviously) legitimate reasons for lawsuits, but our society has been turned into one massive padded cell thanks to all these lawsuits.

Anyone with a brain understands that in any activity there are inherent risks, but let's not let our society be run by those without brains and by their greedy, unscrupulous hired guns.

It is great to hear that the Utah courts have worked to find a reasonable balance of liability in sporting activities.

Unfortuneately in this day and age that we live in too many people have been raised to believe that someone other than themselves should be responsible and liable, for their personal safety. Of course that someone else does not end up being some big corporation, but instead John and Jane Q Public absorbs the bill.

More good common sense legislation such as this needs to protect the public from litigation happy parasites.

Hard to hear about some of the suffering these people have gone through, but that is part of the deal when participating in such activities. Having gone on the bobsled run, I fully agree that I was well-prepped into what I was getting into. You sign waivers, watch safety videos, etc. Hard not to go through with it and claim you didn't know.

This weekend a man was killed in an avalanche while skiing in-bounds at a Park City ski area. A young boy was desperately injured and is still unconscious.

The resort is clearly at fault. Do you think they will step up and take responsibility or do you think they will say this is an unfortunate accident?

Our litigious society is the result of dishonorable persons/businesses causing injury and hiding, lying, or otherwise avoiding liability in the incident.

An in-bounds avalanche says the resort didn't take nominal steps to safeguard their customers. So, lets watch and see if the owners are stand up guys or if they will hide under their lawyers desks.

To say that the resort was responsible for the avalanche is absurd. I have worked in the past at another ski resort. Yes they take all steps possible to prevent avalanches, but they are still possible. If a ski resort drops shells onto the slops and nothing happens, there isn't much else that they can do. If you go to any ski resort, you will find that they do all they can do to prevent the avalanche. Once they do all they can do, they put procedures in place to keep an eye on the resort so if one happens they are on site as soon as possible. Could the Canyons have done something more? I dont know. But to think that they didn't do all they could is just dumb. I dont think they are that stupid.

There seems to be a general trend towards expecting others to be accountable for our own errors in judgement. What you're dealing with is Nature in all her glory. The tendency towards extreme sking, thrill seeking, pushing everything to the edge of the envelope, all for a thrill is lunacy. I feel terrible for this young man, but the moment he decided to strap on skis / board and enter a competition, his safety was in his own hands. Years ago I cracked my head open at the top of PowderHorn at Solitude, had several stitches, but it wasn't because the resort put that powder in my path; I just wasn't prepared then to deal with it properly. Now, all this said, the "business" of skiing has taken over, as it has other industries. Please let's not be naive & think there's any other motive in the corporate suite other than the bottom line. To this young man and his family, all my hopes and prayers; to the rest of us, there are consequences to just going out in the world everyday, let alone participating in winter sports. Be wise. Ski in control.

You ask what more could they have done?
They could have closed for a few hours.
There was lots of new snow on old snow in the valley, can't imagine what the mountains got- there is a liability from the "pro's" that work/run the resort- close it when the runs get too much snow too fast! Maybe if they were sued they would think of the dangers instead of the bottom $$ line.

The avalanche at The Canyons occurred in terrain only accessible from a lift with a large "EXPERT ONLY" sign. Skiiers in line were warned that the avalanche danger was extreme. At 36 I have spent the last 31 years on skis and have been on the lift in question a number of times. All avalanche control measures anyone would consider reasonable for a resort to undertake can easily be changed by the dynamics of skiiers passing over the terrain and pushing up the bumps. If you are going to ski expert only terrain then you better be prepared to get buried. The fun knee and waist deep powder can easily slide when you put the momentum of a skier into the equation, even where explosives didn't trigger a slide, and bury/kill as easily as bathtub water. It may be light and fluffly initially, but when it slides it heats and partial melts, becoming dense and hard on top of you like the slush curbside. Then it doesn't take much to put a ton of snow on your chest and suffocate. 1 or 2 feet of that snow kills as easily 6 when you are buried in it.

It's scary that someone with 31 years of experience on skis actually thinks a resort would warn people in line that there was an extreme danger of an avalanche while they load chairs.

This basically would make the Canyons liable.

If you don't want to risk being buried by an avalanche, don't go skiing when the news and everyone is telling you "avalanche danger is high."

To go skiing anyway, expecting others to be responsible for your foolhardiness, is irresponsible.

When ski resorts are found to be liable, usually the jury is so broken-hearted over the terrible suffering the skier has brought on himself, they want to shift some of the burden of medical care to the ski resort, just because they have more money or insurance. It's not always a case of actual fault or negligence on the part of the resort.

That's why I don't ski anymore. Too expensive because of the lawyers. I remember in the late 70's paying $5 on Wednesdays at Brighton.

I've spent days skiing in the back country. I have skied untracked power. I've slept on thirty feet of snow. My recreation didn't require clear cutting slopes, condo development, lodges or fancy events that encourage scandalous behavior or Mitt to save me. I never left a plume of smoke behind.

If we follow the logic of responsibility that MT suggests, city and state governments should deny motorists access to all highways and streets any time there will be more snow or ice than the road crews can clear. Why, after all, they know there is an inherent danger, and they still allow us to drive on the roads.

Once again the attitude that someone other than ourselves should be responsible for all danger and risk, releasing each of us from any responsibility for measuring risk and potential consequence.

Not a single person with a reasonable inteligence level should not know that the moment they step fcot on the ski slopes they are risking life and limb. Nay, the very moment they enter the canyon. Nay, the very moment they got out of bed in the morning. That's life.

If only we could sue all of the reckless snowboarders... they cause far more accidents and injuries than any negligence of the resorts.

whether on a board or skis, and you sound like a gaper

The PCMR decision was good, the Snowbird one horrendous. You can tell from reading the Snowbird decision, that the majority knew the result they wanted and strained, yanked and twisted the law to make it fit. What a joke.