If a tree falls in the forest and kills someone will the family sue?

Tresle trees is not even a run.  It is not even on the ski map.  Been skiing Winter Park for almost 30 years and would never go in here without a friend.   Would be a shame if this area gets roped off as a result of this.

If this BS lawsuit wins, ski resorts would have no choice but to rope off all tree boundrys of every run they have cut or label on the ski map.

Yes it was a bad accident but the fault is with the skier.

1.  Snow pack this year was horrid.

2.  He went skiing alone in an unmarked gladed area.  There is not enough personal in the ski resort to sweep all the cut runs AND every acre of trees between them.

Just a comment about many of the posts: What is it about a ski resort getting sued that creates this knee jerk indifference to the actual tragedy? This was a guy with a brand new family. He leaves behind two very young children and a wife who's probably trying to figure out what the rest of her life will be like without him.

And you know what? Except for the John Wayne channelers here at Epic, most skiers on most mountains assume exactly what his widow said: If you're inbounds, and the ski patrol has opened an area, it's safe. Their idea of innate risks is pretty much bound up with cold fingers or blown ACL's. They don't read the fine print on the ticket, and they don't get the fine distinctions between roller coasters and resort conglomerates. Shame this guy wasn't as smart as we are. Clearly Darwin Award material, deserved what he got. 

But curious if you'd say some of this stuff to his widow, face to face. Naaaw. And hey anyway, the thread is about the lawsuit. Which is automatically attributed to greedy lawyers, stupid skiers, and deceived next of kin.

Trestle is a marked run. Trestle trees, AFAIK, is not. Nonetheless, it may not have been roped and marked as closed.

At Whitewater, in Canada, where the legal rules are somewhat different, it is common to rope and mark as potentially hazardous substantial areas of skiable terrain. And it is common for skilled skiers to duck the ropes and go past the signs. Often, those skiers are equipped with beacons, probes and shovels, none of which will help much if they get caught in a slide that slams them into a rock or a tree.

Whitewater also marks hard closures, usually in slide zones below active avalanche control work. You lose your pass if you're caught violating one of these.

We certainly hope that the lawsuit, even if it's justified, doesn't cause WP or other US ski areas to start closing all terrain that has some risk. Black diamond runs, after all, are partially defined by risk and the skill required to manage that risk. But it might not be all bad if gladed but otherwise unmarked terrain was roped and signed as possibly hazardous. This makes the risk clearer to those who might not really be aware of it, while not closing the terrain to those willing to accept the risk. It may help protect the ski area in court because everyone who enters the area in question has to duck a rope and pass a warning sign.

Skiing unmarked glades and other terrain not labeled as a run on the trail map is much more common than it was just a few years ago. Intermediate skiers on rockers are pushing into terrain that used to be reserved for those with much more experience and skill. Improvements in terrain marking practices might help them become aware of the possible consequences of some of their choices.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that litigation can be good for the ski industry.  Absolving the industry of responsibility to ensure that the risks are within those INHERENT to the sport is a mistake.  Let me make that clear -- the industry shouldn't be responsible for risks that are inherent to the sport, but should be liable for those outside that inherent risk.  When does that occur?  When they act in a grossly negligent fashion.

Is this a case where the resort acted in a grossly negligent fashion?  It doesn't seem so to me.  Patrol had examined the slope, even cut it, and it appeared to be stable.  It would seem to me that it would be hard to prove that they had acted in a grossly negligent fashion.  Rather, it would appear this was a case where the avalanche was a risk inherent in the sport -- stuff can slide even after it's been bombed, cut, and stomped.

The situation at Vail on the same day MAY be different.  At least as I understand that situation, Upper Prima Cornice was closed because of uncleared avalanche hazard, but patrol did not close Lower Prima Cornice and the kids cut into the slope from that lower entrance.  One knowledgable report claims that they did not climb the slope.  If that's the case, there might be more of an argument that patrol should've considered the risk that the uncleared slope (upper) might avi onto the lower slope trapping skiers on the open slope.

Are there a lot of frivolous law suits?  Yes, and that's too bad.  But there are also suits that have real merit, such as the racer killed at Vail by the employee on the snowmobile, the failure of a certain ski resort to repair a bridge that caused a skier to be impaled on debris from the bridge, etc.  And these "rightful" suits cause ski areas not to ban activity, but to clean up their act and consider safety in their operations.

Mike

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhcooley 

Trestle is a marked run. Trestle trees, AFAIK, is not. Nonetheless, it may not have been roped and marked as closed.

 

At Whitewater, in Canada, where the legal rules are somewhat different, it is common to rope and mark as potentially hazardous substantial areas of skiable terrain. And it is common for skilled skiers to duck the ropes and go past the signs. Often, those skiers are equipped with beacons, probes and shovels, none of which will help much if they get caught in a slide that slams them into a rock or a tree.

 

Whitewater also marks hard closures, usually in slide zones below active avalanche control work. You lose your pass if you're caught violating one of these.

 

We certainly hope that the lawsuit, even if it's justified, doesn't cause WP or other US ski areas to start closing all terrain that has some risk. Black diamond runs, after all, are partially defined by risk and the skill required to manage that risk. But it might not be all bad if gladed but otherwise unmarked terrain was roped and signed as possibly hazardous. This makes the risk clearer to those who might not really be aware of it, while not closing the terrain to those willing to accept the risk. It may help protect the ski area in court because everyone who enters the area in question has to duck a rope and pass a warning sign.

 

Skiing unmarked glades and other terrain not labeled as a run on the trail map is much more common than it was just a few years ago. Intermediate skiers on rockers are pushing into terrain that used to be reserved for those with much more experience and skill. Improvements in terrain marking practices might help them become aware of the possible consequences of some of their choices.

Nice post, especially the last paragraph which also applies to skate boarders who take up snowboarding and then their learning curve and ability to tackle big terrain gets way ahead of the absorption of mountain culture and respect for the mountains.

Quote:

Originally Posted by segbrown 

 They are saying that inbounds skiing doesn't carry an inherent risk of avalanche, it seems. Which is, in effect, somewhat true. But not totally.  

 

Somewhat expected and desired, but I think ultimately not true.  It really depends on the inbounds terrain.  I don't expect avalanche risk anywhere near a beginner or intermediate run.    This family (or more accurately the attorney) might have a case if this death had happened in a part of the mountain where risks from avalanches are supposed to be zero.  Black, double black, and cliff-band areas are another story, you have to accept that it can happen.

Assumiing the suit is successful, I don't think it will change much for any ski area, other than they will have to be more aggressive about closing off small parts of the terrain or glade.  Most places do this already, roping off a small area with rocks until there's adequate snow coverage.  They'll just have to do it more in unusual years like this one where the coverage is sketchy and when the conditions are prone to avy danger.

Extra skull and crossbones signage on danger days on the lift going up;  ala Kirkwood.  give fair warning...

But back to the original lawsuit, you know this would be a trial i think any of us would actually be interested in adjudicating. For the jury basically you get to be 

watching one lawyer fight against the other and the judge is referee.

The contention is A) patrollers knew or should have known it was unsafe and  B) should have closed off area. 

Note that proving point A does not automatically imply point B.

I'd assume they'd bring in either expert patrollers and ski industry experts from both side as expert witnesses.  That would be fun to watch one and evaluate which expert's credentials are more trustworthy and who is full of crap...maybe just for a little while though.

If they got the smoking gun that 500other people got injured every year in that exact same spot (ala McD Hot Coffee)  maybe they have a case.

You are correct that most in-bounds skiers "assume" the same thing, I know I don't worry about avi danger when I bring my family to any of the resorts I've visited. That said, my reaction (which is very much anti-suit) is not based on indifference to the tragedy but rather a love for the uncontrolled man-against-nature aspect of skiing. Slight hyperbole I know but if this suit and others like it succeed, resorts will react by removing territory and turning the rest into corduroy. Do you want that?

Just because I wouldn't seek out the family and tell them they're wrong doesn't make the comments on this blog any less valid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NayBreak 


The lawsuit itself diminishes the tragedy. ..
These cases are not harmful - they test the intent of the law and its practical implications in the face of personal tragedy...

Lawsuits in this context absolutely are harmful.  There is harm every which way, except potentially to the plaintiff's attorney.  (The attorneys representing a ski area actually can do ok themselves, but clearly aren't incented to bring or aggravate a lawsuit, just like firefighters don't like having to fight fires.)

Debate clubs can be fun.  Nothing more than gas money to get there, and everyone leaves happy.  Lawsuits by contrast take lots of time and money and personal stress to defend.  Then afterwards, even after a completely meritless suit, people completely unconnected to the suit can find that their recreational opportunities have changed -- no diving boards at the local pool, say, or in this case, potentially dramatically less terrain.  The plaintiff's attorney, like a shark, can generally just swim on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by habacomike 

Is this a case where the resort acted in a grossly negligent fashion?  It doesn't seem so to me... Rather, it would appear this was a case where the avalanche was a risk inherent in the sport -- stuff can slide even after it's been bombed, cut, and stomped.

 

Are there a lot of frivolous law suits?  Yes, and that's too bad.  But there are also suits that have real merit...And these "rightful" suits cause ski areas not to ban activity, but to clean up their act and consider safety in their operations.

 

Mike

Agree with both ideas here. I don't see any gross negligence, although it would be interesting to find out why the area in question wasn't closed off or posted as potential risky. At what point does a resort do enough to equal a human life? But my post was never about who's right or wrong in Colorado. It was about the reaction here.  I'm trying to make the point that most skiers are not like us. They make assumptions about safety that the fine print doesn't allow them to make. Even assuming they're adults. So does that make them stupid, and their survivors grasping? Or just unlucky; "hey sh*t happens." Or does it suggest that (gasp) the fine print is another example of how the laws do not actually protect everyone equally, and (gasp) tend to favor wealth, and corporations over individuals? If you disagree with the last statement, suggest you read the last year's worth of Supreme Court decisions.

I'm intrigued by the likelihood that most of the posters who defend the ski resort without even knowing most of the facts would probably not automatically defend oh, say Google for collecting our neighborhood wi-fi conversations, or JP Morgan that we all bailed out gambling away 2 billion that will get charged to its shareholders and perhaps then to us again, or Facebook for letting a few folks know ahead of time that its prospects weren't as golden as its IPO made out. All of these just as perfectly legal, and just as tinged with legally defined "innate risk" as a ski resort's inbounds avalanche. So is it just that ski resorts are not accountable for stuff that we tend to condemn in other corporations because, ah, well, they don't deal with our obsession? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmaie 

 

You are correct that most in-bounds skiers "assume" the same thing, I know I don't worry about avi danger when I bring my family to any of the resorts I've visited. That said, my reaction (which is very much anti-suit) is not based on indifference to the tragedy but rather a love for the uncontrolled man-against-nature aspect of skiing. Slight hyperbole I know but if this suit and others like it succeed, resorts will react by removing territory and turning the rest into corduroy. Do you want that?

 

Just because I wouldn't seek out the family and tell them they're wrong doesn't make the comments on this blog any less valid.

Obviously, I don't want "that." But I think you're presenting a false dichotomy. My post was meant to draw attention to just that kind of reasoning: Anything that threatens the resort's ability to run like it wants means we'll all be doomed to carving groomers forever. Or worse, it'll SHUT DOWN  So we better protect these little jewels. I don't buy into those assumptions. (See above.)

As far as not seeking out the family, seems like you're buying into the dehumanizing quality of online debates. There's been a lot written about this by sociologists and psychologists, incidentally. The point isn't whether the comments are "valid" - what does that even mean? That they're well argued? That the constitution gives us the right to our opinions? That anything on the web is true? - but that the web removes the impact of 6 million years of neural evolution about interacting face to face. We don't have to gauge the impact of our words on what will happen next. We don't have to read and react to non-verbal cues. We don't even ever have to meet the person we're "talking" to. Or about. You may think this is liberating, I think the results can be creepy. Or wearying. Or funny if you're Josh/BWPA and game everyone else into thinking you're actually your persona. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by CTKook 

Lawsuits in this context absolutely are harmful.  There is harm every which way, except potentially to the plaintiff's attorney...The plaintiff's attorney, like a shark, can generally just swim on.

One of my ski buddies is an attorney. He likes to joke (ruefully) that everyone hates lawyers. Until they need one. As far as the first sentence, what's "in this context?" Any death that involves a ski resort? Any lawsuit by a remaining family member? Any lawsuit against any ski resort? And what's "absolutely harmful?" To the entire cosmos? To the family? To your god-given right to ski? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by beyond 

...

One of my ski buddies is an attorney. He likes to joke (ruefully) that everyone hates lawyers. Until they need one. As far as the first sentence, what's "in this context?" Any death that involves a ski resort? Any lawsuit by a remaining family member? Any lawsuit against any ski resort? And what's "absolutely harmful?" To the entire cosmos? To the family? To your god-given right to ski? 

As for "absolutely harmful," that's not what I wrote.  I said "absolutely are harmful," which could also have been "definitely are harmful."  In economic terms, they dramatically increase the cost of making a good/service, lift-served skiing, available.  Lift-served skiing and riding have clear health and social benefits.  They also have certain inherent risks.  To provide the activity at a reasonable cost, those inherent risks, which include variable snow conditions, have to be born by the skiers and riders. 

Allowing plaintiffs attorneys to file these type of lawsuits has already dramatically affected the availability of other similar types of recreation.  There is a clear causal link.

As for the tort bar, google Dickie Scruggs and Bill Lerach, and explore that storyline a little bit.  It is not attacking attorneys in general to say that the tort bar in the U.S. has an, uh, interesting pattern.  I don't think it's an accident John Edwards practiced the type of law he did before moving into politics and giving the world such lawyerly nuances as remission adultery and, as it turned out, non-remission adultery. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by CTKook 

As for "absolutely harmful," that's not what I wrote.  I said "absolutely are harmful," which could also have been "definitely are harmful."  In economic terms, they dramatically increase the cost of making a good/service, lift-served skiing, available.  Lift-served skiing and riding have clear health and social benefits.  They also have certain inherent risks.  To provide the activity at a reasonable cost, those inherent risks, which include variable snow conditions, have to be born by the skiers and riders. 

 

Allowing plaintiffs attorneys to file these type of lawsuits has already dramatically affected the availability of other similar types of recreation.  There is a clear causal link.

 

Sorry, "absolutely are harmful." But still don't see your point, in that any lawsuit against a service provider would seem to increase the cost of making a service available. Which is one big reason insurance companies exist. Also, any service provider presumably could argue they provide social benefits, and perhaps health benefits. Disneyworld certainly provides both, for instance. So does any restaurant. And any service has some definable innate risk. Getting a massage, for instance, could lead to a nerve pinch. Eating dinner out could lead to choking to death. Your nanny could lose your kid. I love to ski, obviously, but is it categorically different from playing golf? Naaw. I'm still paying for a recreational service that entails certain risks (the course could have insecticide on it that causes me to have an asthma attack, I could get hit by lightening while swinging, I could trip over a marker and break an ankle, I could have a stroke from the force of an errant golf ball whacking me), and the club passes on the costs of covering (some) of those risks to me in the ticket/membership price. They don't need a special law exempting them. They have lawyers who can show that me getting fried by lightening wasn't their fault. Unless they were insisting on continuing the tourney when the forecast violent thunderstorms showed up.

So it's not clear to me why skiing is so different in kind from other services that it requires special legislation to avoid lawsuits, nor is it clear why the costs of risks (which can be catastrophic to the family that loses a member) must be borne so fully by the consumers of the service. An alternative, for instance, would be for the resort to bear more of a burden for risk management and spread out the costs to all of us. We may not like to hear that, but that's how every other service in the world does it. And I'd gladly pay an extra 10% for safer inbounds if that means additional ski patrol and avalanche management so I have a markedly lower risk of losing my mate. Or kids. Particularly if the weather becomes as weird as models predict. If you don't want to pay the added costs, then go hike over the side and figure out your own risk costs vs benefits. Out of bounds, should be all on you.

Am not a Google follower of lawyers, but I'm always suspicious of what terms like "a clear causal link" mean. A correlation? Do you have an analysis to cite that shows actual causality - which is tricky even in controlled experiments - or is this a hunch? And what's the implication if there is a causal link? That we should ban all lawsuits against ski resorts? Go for it, and watch the change in who skis. You'll lose a whole bunch of kids, for one thing, because if a resort is freed from any legal responsibility for anything it does with children, a lot of parents will be very wary of dropping off their kids in ski school. You may see lawyers as sharks, I see them as a necessary evil in a society that rigs most odds in favor of the house...ah, but of course ski resorts aren't the house, are they, they're these poor, beleaguered sources of our joy. Hey, lose a few skiers, no biggie. Shorter lines in the chair lifts that no longer need servicing because, well, it's too expensive for the resort, and the new anti-lawsuit legislation makes them an innate risk...

Quote:

Originally Posted by beyond 

.... And I'd gladly pay an extra 10% for safer inbounds if that means additional ski patrol and avalanche management so I have a markedly lower risk of losing my mate. Or kids....

Maybe you need to learn a bit more about actual snow and what stability testing can and can't do, and go read up on inherent risks.

Then go read up on the effect of lawsuits on sports like competitive diving and skateboarding. 

Also, it may be a surprise to some people, but paying an extra 10% for everything isn't doable for a lot of people.  It may sound surprising, but lots of people actually have budgets.

In a word lobbyists.

I suggest whenever such discussions fall to watch the Hot coffee movie.  I found it really informative and changed how I thought about the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(film)

They describe the legislation in Texas I believe that limited malpractice lawsuits.   The lobbyists ran the same campaign to convince legislators and voters that a reason for high health care costs was because of these frivolous lawsuits.

However, after the law passed, and you ran the numbers, both costs and amount of malpractice did not go down, comparing to the state itself before/after the law as well as other states that did not change any laws.

I don't remember the details exactly, but I do remember the point is lobbyists run things pretty slickly to convince you of something that sounds like it should be true but really isn't (truthiness).

The system works well enough so people don't just "win the lottery" with lawsuits, all the frivolous stuff loses.  There are real stories behind what happened that convinces judges and jury of what happened.  Why have an arbitrary cap without hearing out the details of each specific cases in all it's glory (court) then deciding what is fair or not fair.

Fair enough, there are some possible points.

As far as the frivolous lawsuit,  Would it not be better to directly address the problem and punish the frivolous claims rather than indirectly going around the other way and having the cap.  but I'm sure this was addressed and debated to death already too and don't want to get into that.

If you are worried about sympathetic courts , then it's the appeals process that is broken, where you (meaning your insurance company) didn't get a fair trial so that should be what is addressed. 

The claim that having the cap will lower the insurance premiums turns out in practice to be B.S.

In my view, I always wonder about the ulterior motives when there is indirect solutions to proposed problems.  Usually when a indirect solution is proposed, it means that the solution came first then someone went back to grasp for problems or justification to have that solution, rather than the other way around. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matthias99 

Quote:

As far as the frivolous lawsuit, Would it not be better to directly address the problem and punish the frivolous claims rather than indirectly going around the other way and having the cap. but I'm sure this was addressed and debated to death already too and don't want to get into that.

Personally I would say yes, generally, but broadly speaking there is disagreement about this.
For instance -- and I know this is getting OT; I'll try not to go to far afield -- there have been a lot of debates about whether medical malpractice suits should be limited in various ways as part of healthcare reform.
On one hand, malpractice insurance premiums are crazy high, especially for certain specialties like radiology and OB/GYN. That cost gets passed on to consumers. And getting sued is a huge PITA and can ruin your career. Because of that, doctors sometimes tend to practice 'defensive medicine' such as ordering unnecessary tests just to reduce the risk they'll get sued later, which also drives up costs for everyone. Sometimes you get other weird and bad effects, like doctors being unable to apologize to a patient or tell them what went wrong out of fear anything they say will be taken out of context and used against them in court.
On the other hand, when a doctor really does screw up badly, people die, so there need to be strong incentives for them not to screw up or cut corners.
Balancing those kinds of factors is often not easy or simple. When you start talking about people's lives on the line, emotions run high, to say the least.

Yea, true, but now I question if the lobbyist koolaid was drunk.  

If you believe what is shown in the "hot coffee" film, it shows that the theory that putting in caps would reduce those premiums and reduce costs don't come out in reality nor improve care.

As far as extra testing,

I read a recent study showing that extra testing was a result electronic record keeping, and overal modernization and streamlining which promised to reduce costs.  

So the law of unintended consequences comes through again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CTKook 

Maybe you need to learn a bit more about actual snow and what stability testing can and can't do, and go read up on inherent risks.

 

Then go read up on the effect of lawsuits on sports like competitive diving and skateboarding. 

 

Also, it may be a surprise to some people, but paying an extra 10% for everything isn't doable for a lot of people.  It may sound surprising, but lots of people actually have budgets.

These comments just don't seem very relevant. 1) I'm not arguing for a particular type of testing, and I'm pretty up on snow, actually. But on a day that segbrown characterizes as full of snow conditions never seen before, doesn't seem like a serious leap of imagination for a resort to post warning signs or even rope off areas that might be problematic. That doesn't involve stability testing, just common sense and a few more patrollers. 2) Unclear that the results of lawsuits in one sport correlate to another. But if juries found that a skateboard park had intrinsic safety issues that were inadequately addressed, and led to injuries or fatalities, then how is that wrong? Would you rather have recreational sports inside a 19th century laissez faire time warp, service provider held responsible for zip, nada, buyer beware? And your assumption that said provider won't then let the services become more and more unsafe is based on?? Hey I know: If enough of us die, then we'll go to another unregulated provider. Swell. 3) 10% of a lift ticket is say $9. The total day, including gas, food, amortized gear, but not lodging, is probably approaching $200. Are you trying to argue that we'll lose significant demand if the price of a ticket increases by 10%, and that this loss won't largely be erased by increased demand associated with a safer sport? Prove it. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by segbrown 

SInce I posted this, I guess I'll address a few things. I hope I didn't come across as responding knee-jerk  to this suit. First off, I sympathize with the surviving spouse, who has two little kids to support. I don't know her financial/work/life insurance position, but I can certainly imagine the temptation if someone came to my door and said, "you know, you might be able to make a quick $100K by suing the corporation that didn't keep skiing safe." She is a mother in survival mode right now, you know? 

 

I never said ski areas should be above lawsuits, either -- but this particular one rubs me the wrong way, because of the reasons I stated before, and a few others, too. First off, this wasn't even a run. It was the trees. As far as I'm concerned, you go into the trees at your own risk, at all times. Patrol can't go into all the trees and make them safe, that is just silly. Are they supposed to clear out the deadfall so you don't break your leg? I do think they need to mitigate hazards on named runs, especially greens and blues. 

 

The other big thing, for me, is the condition of the snowpack. I was skiing that day, and saw cracks and fissures in places I never, ever had seen them. This year turned a normally sketchy CO snowpack into a hair-trigger snowpack, the likes of which really hadn't been seen before. 

 

Finally, in-bounds avy deaths are so, so rare here. That two happened on the same day says a lot of things  -- "Fatal inbounds avalanches seem to occur in statistical surges like Sunday's. In December 2008, three skiers were killed by avalanches in a two-week in span inside resorts in Utah, Wyoming and California. That same span saw several close calls in Colorado, including partial burials of skiers inside boundaries at Vail and Telluride."

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_19815377#ixzz1vurHN8N6   I guess my fear is that everything gets changed needlessly for an outlier. 

 

You didn't come across as knee jerk, IMO, but I question a few of your assertions. Particularly that trees don't count as a "run." Everyplace I've skied trees, the ah, non-runs have names, the locals know all about the stashes, and there are plenty of tracks. Moreover, it's all legally inbounds unless otherwise indicated. Many resorts have these non-runs/glades shown on maps, typically with a cross-hatched pattern to indicate it's a tree ah, non-run. So whatever you want to call it, if plenty of skiers ski it with the resort's knowledge, IMO it's a run. That the patrollers bothered to cut the upper reaches for stability suggests they thought it was a place people would ski, too. So why didn't someone ski the whole thing and notice this giant lump of snow further down? Or take a look at the weird weather/weird snow and say, "hmmm, maybe we should err on the side of safety and close this off." Not sure they should or shouldn't have, and of course the very suggestion will send many here into lurid fantasies about being chained to corduroy. But something to mull over. IMO some of this is that many Epic members want it both ways: They want the convenience of skiing inbounds lift served, with a cold beer waiting at lunch, but they also want everything to remain sufficiently sidebound-ish that it'll satisfy their exploratory urges. 

Second, IMO this group of events you cite is not what statisticians call an outlier. Typically, when things cluster like that in time, epidemiologists (yep, they study patterns of accidents too, not just disease) will look for a common casual factor. It would seem here that the weather was the link. Now people love to talk about "freak" weather, like tornados in Missouri, but many climatologists now believe that we're going to be seeing a lot more variability, a lot more "freak" stuff. Check out the number of tornados since Missouri. Check out the "freak" thaws like we had in March, and think about what that does to snowpack stability when the next storm comes. What if this cluster may actually be a preview of coming attractions? What if inbounds avalanches are going to, on average, become more common? Does that change your thinking on this issue? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by beyond 

These comments just don't seem very relevant. 1) I'm not arguing for a particular type of testing, and I'm pretty up on snow, actually. But on a day that segbrown characterizes as full of snow conditions never seen before, doesn't seem like a serious leap of imagination for a resort to post warning signs or even rope off areas that might be problematic. That doesn't involve stability testing, just common sense and a few more patrollers. 2) Unclear that the results of lawsuits in one sport correlate to another. But if juries found that a skateboard park had intrinsic safety issues that were inadequately addressed, and led to injuries or fatalities, then how is that wrong? Would you rather have recreational sports inside a 19th century laissez faire time warp, service provider held responsible for zip, nada, buyer beware? And your assumption that said provider won't then let the services become more and more unsafe is based on?? Hey I know: If enough of us die, then we'll go to another unregulated provider. Swell. 3) 10% of a lift ticket is say $9. The total day, including gas, food, amortized gear, but not lodging, is probably approaching $200. Are you trying to argue that we'll lose significant demand if the price of a ticket increases by 10%, and that this loss won't largely be erased by increased demand associated with a safer sport? Prove it....

What is clear is you don't know much about the subject area, but continue to come up with new reasons why lawsuits in this context really would be a help.  For instance, you'd questioned whether there was a causal link between litigation and the decline in availability and participation rates in some sports.  I gave two examples where there is a clear causal link, and now you seem to acknowledge there may be a causal link, but think a jury of non-skaters, say, can adequately judge skatepark design issues and that it's not a bad thing if parks get shut down by this process.

Some history.  Skateboarding exploded in popularity in the 70s.  By the mid-late 70s there were hundreds of parks.  Then, a few years later, because of lawsuits, virtually all those parks were gone.  It took roughly another 20 years for people interested in skating to work out reasonable solutions to keep the very nasty piranhas from the plaintiff's bar at bay so that they couldn't again kill this very healthy outlet for athletic activity.  Skateparks, btw, have always been very safe -- they tend to have injury rates slightly lower than, but comparable to, basketball courts.  What happened in the 70s is you had some aggressive attorneys see a chance for cash, so a safe a healthy sport got killed off for roughly a generation.  Now, some kids did start skating in the street, which is more dangerous, but a natural adaptive response. 

As far as judging what is safe, your words again show you don't know much about snow safety, and that's even as a skier.  I'm quite sure you know nothing about skatepark design and safety, and that is as someone who still is more active than your average Joe.  It may come as a surprise to you, but ski patrols and skatepark designers take safety very very seriously.  No one wants to see people get hurt.  Some of the biggest conflicts with patrol in slide-prone areas occur over patrol trying to keep people safe.  You are not in a position to judge patrols or ski areas, much less skateparks, and the average Joe has no clue.  If you slide around, either on skis or a skateboard, you will sooner or later get hurt.  Common sense, and the common sense answer is to say anyone choosing to slide around assumes the risk of the injuries that will come with the activity. 

As far as understanding the laws of economics, you again have no clue.  You don't understand that lawsuits don't increase safety, either.  What lawsuits have shown an ability to do is to kill off or dramatically alter a sport for a whole generation. 

And again, to understand what people are dealing with, they should google Dickie Scruggs and for that matter John Edwards.  This is not a normal part of the bar, it is a part of the bar where dark things happen.  The last thing you want to expose ski areas to for the heart of what they do, which is provide skiing and riding as a wholesome and healthy, and quite safe, recreational outlet.

1) If a ski area places lots of bamboo and ropes at natural obstacles, the implication to the less experienced skier is that ALL dangerous obstacles are marked (an absolute impossibility). That opens the question for them: I hit this rock, why wasn't it marked?  Why wasn't I warned? At Squaw, a very rocky mountain, very few obstacles are marked, intentionally. implication: you're on your own to use your head.

2) In general, no one knows the snow dynamics of a ski area better than the patrol there. Do you want to overlay a group of less knowledgeable regulators to command and judge them?

(Ski area safety regulation is most apt with respect to the uphill operations.)

3) In one of the Matchstick Production films, Shane and J.T. discuss how different skiing in Europe is, and how a less litigious society enjoys more (not less) freedom (access) in the high mountains.

4) A danger level sign such as is posted on the side of the road in a state forest to indicate fire danger level, but which quotes the local avi conditions report posted at the bottom of the lifts should be adequate, and even that is coddling.

IMO

I agree that this is part of the inherent risk of skiing.

But I can imagine circumstances where such a suit could be legitimate.

As long as the ski area/ski patrol followed reasonable procedures the case should be thrown out.

But, say management ignored a clear danger in order to get the terrain open as quickly as possible? Suppose they had just cut back on their avy control budget? Suppose they had overruled the recommendation of their avy control people?

I'm not suggesting any of this happened. I'm just saying that the fact that we accept the inherent risks of skiing doesn't absolve the resort when an incident results from their negligence.

A lot of overreacting here.  Why do people get so worked up about the filing of a lawsuit?  Filing a suit doesn't mean the plaintiff will win.  And none of us has enough facts to judge the merits of the suit.  Worse case scenario is 250K liability that will be covered by insurance.  Hardly a threat to Winter Park or the Colorado ski industry.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Fatal In-Bounds Avalanche at Winter Park Prompts Lawsuit