steamboat1
New member
You my friend are part of the problem.
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Jay Peak Lawsuit
- Thread starter Huck_It_Baby
- Start date
You my friend are part of the problem.
And I'm sure Jay and all other ski areas do. How can you possibly establish a "standard" of ski school practice that would hold up in a court of law where the ski area is liable? There's just far too many variables. There's no way to define it. Just look at the date this accident happened on. April 17th, a WEDNESDAY, during one of the last weeks of the season. The mountain was likely a ghost town compared to a vacation week and yet, a tragic accident happened. Jay has probably taught tens of thousands of lessons on this same slope throughout the years without a bad accident like this happening. It happens once, and now the mountain is somehow partially at fault? You can't put the sport in such a safety bubble.
fbrissette
Well-known member
Raccoon run, under the Village Chair has definitely less advanced skier traffic than the Interstate. However, it is not a good choice for young kids in ski school for the following reasons:
- you now have to fully cross interstate exposing yourself more then simply going down the run
- to get there you have to use Perry Merril. The second half is very flat, and small kids (<6) end up having to walk, being pulled or pushed, which is impractical if you have 7 kids under your watch.
- the Village chair is an old double chair with a very heavy bar. It sits high. Young kids will not be able to move the bar and may have a hard time getting on the chair so you need an adult with each kid. The instructor will have to wait several minutes to get each kid with an adult. The Metro quad only has an upper bar and sits lower. Definitely designed for younger skiers.
- raccoon run is a concave slope with a very long flat runout and a steepish upper part for beginners. Not ideal. Interstate has a constant pitch and is much wider.
- To come back to tramside, you have to use Queen's highway which is the major connecting run. Lots of Traffic.
- With a group of 8 beginners, I would wage you will easily lose 20-30 minutes just making it back and forth thus losing 25% of your 2-hour lesson time.
These duties are not bright-line tests. That's why we need courts in the first place. The parties present their case to the trier of fact, who then determines whether under the facts and circumstances the defendant has satisfied its duties to the plaintiff. I have repeatedly said that I do not know if Jay Peak has breached any duties of care it may have had to the child. I have simply said that I think it is relevant that the child was a student in a class offered by the resort at the time that the accident occurred and that this should be taken into account by the court in determining whether the resort breached a duty to the child. Frankly, I find it amazing that this is a controversial point. Doctors have special responsibilities to their patients, lawyers to their clients, parents to their children and teachers to their students. You have failed to make the case for why these special responsibilities should not apply when the teacher is an employee of a ski area.
Thanks. Sounds like JP is not set up to teach novices safely!
from_the_NEK
Active member
Picard reconsidering his plan to invest in JP for a green card?!?!
fwiw-i am not aware of a case holding a ski resort liable for injuries caused by another skier because the victim was engaged in a lesson under the supervision of the resort. That being said, a school for instance, in NY has a duty to supervise the children under their authority as a reasonably prudent parent would. Applying that standard, I dont see how Jay would be liable. Jays liability for the actions of the boarder as an employee is a different issue.
BTW-there was an article linked to above, that said that vermont ski areas pay about 20m/year for all kinds of insurance. That doesnt seem like a lot to me.
BTW-there was an article linked to above, that said that vermont ski areas pay about 20m/year for all kinds of insurance. That doesnt seem like a lot to me.
I wonder if there is any negative precedent. I think as a matter of first impression, the theory might have some legs. I do not think it's a homerun for the plaintiff. However, I do think the fact that a novice skier was nearly killed by a speeding boarder during a lesson raises a question of fact as to whether the resort was reasonable in conducting the lesson on that slope under the circumstances. Some of the other posters seem to think I am advocating a strict liability standard for injuries that occur during a lesson. That would be silly, both economically and as a matter of basic fairness. However, I do think that when someone is providing service to a person, especially for pay, they have an obligation to provide those services in a reasonably prudent manner. Maybe Jay Peak did so. I don't know. But the fact that skiing is inherently dangerous does not mean that a skier accepts sole responsibility for all possible risks, as some posters seem to be suggesting.
I can't say too much because I actually practice this kind of law in two major ski states, and I am not offering legal advice, but if a ski area had the liability that you claim then they would NEVER be able to get insurance. EVER. One MAJOR purpose, generally, for the statutory limitation on liability for ski areas is to make it possible for them to get liability insurance to operate. They don't get a completely free ride though and they know that.
That's really all I can generally say.
I agree that it sucks for the family but shit happens and the person at fault was the snowboarder. Unfortunately you can't pick who slams into you and may be liable to you. One theme I've seen in this thread has been, "gee, it sucks for the family because the boarder had no money, so Jay should pay because...." Sorry, that's not a proper reason.
It's a tough case. The girl was seriously hurt, the family is rightfully upset, and Jay never wants to see this happen on their slopes. There may be things that we don't know about that might slightly change the formula, but in the end it was a terrible accident with the boarder at fault.
If you feel that way about Jay, you must feel that way about the vast majority of all major New England ski areas. I could give dozens of examples of similar terrain used by novices all over the place.
Guess no one new should take up the sport. All the ski areas are knowingly providing unsafe environments.
from_the_NEK
Active member
There is risk in everything you do. There is risk to bending over to pull up you underwear in the morning.
You can take reasonable measures to reduce risk but you can never completely eliminate it. Suggesting that a ski area should be held negligent since it knows there is a .001% chance someone MAY get injured by an out of control rider is asinine. For the sake of the skiing and riding community I hope that resorts are never held to you incredible expectation. Our sport as we know it wouldn't exist. Only a very few resorts would be able to afford to pay the insurance to cover all potential outcomes. Then only the very richest people would be able to afford to ski at those few places.
It drives me crazy that people can't accept the fact that there is risk involved in just being alive. If society keeps leaning toward Domes' line of reasoning, we are going to have a really hard time surviving.
You can take reasonable measures to reduce risk but you can never completely eliminate it. Suggesting that a ski area should be held negligent since it knows there is a .001% chance someone MAY get injured by an out of control rider is asinine. For the sake of the skiing and riding community I hope that resorts are never held to you incredible expectation. Our sport as we know it wouldn't exist. Only a very few resorts would be able to afford to pay the insurance to cover all potential outcomes. Then only the very richest people would be able to afford to ski at those few places.
It drives me crazy that people can't accept the fact that there is risk involved in just being alive. If society keeps leaning toward Domes' line of reasoning, we are going to have a really hard time surviving.
Understood. I don't think the kind of liability I am talking about would radically change the status quo. You would know much better than I, but I suspect that the majority of on-slope collisions do not occur when the injured party is taking a lesson. And I am not suggesting that the ski areas should be liable for all injuries that occur while a ski is taking a lesson. But if a ski area negligently put someone at risk when they are teaching that person to ski/board, I think they should be liable and I think a statutory exemption is inappropriate. I am not an underwriter, but I suspect the policies currently in place already exclude acts of negligence by the resort. If that's right, the kind of liability I am talking about should have minimal impact on insurance rates.
I find it unfortunate that the
has usurped the one of the traditional functions of the exclamation point!It drives me crazy when a person's first response to any claim they disagree with is to jump headlong down a slippery slope. I am not suggesting that ski areas have an obligation to remove all risks form the sport. I am only suggesting that they remove unreasonable risks. Sheesh. If everyone took your view of risk mitigation, we'd still be diriving around in Corvairs.
Yes, exaclty. My motive for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, this accident could have been avoided if you didn't teach novices to ski on a high traffic runout is because I disagree with your development strategies. Way to uphold the integrity of the PR industry, Steve. Conspiracy theories and ad hominem attacks are always the first resort of the disingenuous and incompetent.
For the record, I am all for encouraging immigration as a tool for economic development.
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Ah, I get it. Just stick it to the resort because it's not insurable. Increasingly it sounds like your beef is with Jay Peak for whatever reason. And now there's talk again about the instructor's role. That is really fact-based and unless we were right there and saw that she pushed the kid out in front of the guy or did something really stupid then I still stand by the "it sucks, but the resort is not at fault" line.
Let me guess - your practice involves defending resorts. If the alternative is to impose the burden of the resort's negligence on the student it was teaching to ski, then, yes, stick it to the resort.
dlague
Active member
Sounds like distribution of wealth to me! Can't get the money from the guy who caused it so go after the business that might have deep pockets! Name of the game these days and it sucks!
Every person on the mountain is at risk all the time whether they are with an instructor or not! Coming off Lower River Quai there is ample opportunity to see what is below you - the idiot should have slowed down! But there is a catch - the idiot has no money!
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