BC guides in BC sued over fatal avalanche

[LeeLau]

I agree. However the case of a professional hired specifically to manage risk is different than the risk you assume when managing your self.

Cases that don't speak to the negligence of an individual, but rather focus on the liability of an organization are not particularly relevant here. Organizational liability and the waiver has been well established.

The ski instructor that was found liable may be a more direct comparison here.

I know of no case where the ski instructor was found liable. In Braun vs Whistler the waiver/release defeated the case against WB and the instructor

[LeeLau]

This could get interesting in our small community. I've heard about alot this incident as i know the deceased and some others. Curious is the case filed in bc or ab? Would that make a difference Lee?

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Filed in BC. It probably wouldn't make a difference

[summit]

Not a lot of a detail available, so all I can go off of is the obvious facts from the report, pics, and google earth: 2 guides exposed entire group to avalanche hazard at once on a 500m line instead of using safe zones and consequently got all of them caught, many of them injured, and one of them killed.

Seems like this lawsuit will be highly dependent on the details of Canadian law.

In the US, I understand that waivers don't excuse gross negligence.

In some European countries, these guides might be facing criminal prosecution (manslaughter) from my understanding of this incident. The way professional guiding responsibility falls is quite heavy in Europe.

Now I imagine there are a lot of missing critical details we may not learn for a long time with a legal case in progress.

IANAL

[crashidy]

Not a lot of a detail available, so all I can go off of is the obvious facts from the report, pics, and google earth: 2 guides exposed entire group to avalanche hazard at once on a 500m line instead of using safe zones and consequently got all of them caught, many of them injured, and one of them killed.

Seems like this lawsuit will be highly dependent on the details of Canadian law.

In the US, I understand that waivers don't excuse gross negligence.

In some European countries, these guides might be facing criminal prosecution (manslaughter) from my understanding of this incident. The way professional guiding responsibility falls is quite heavy in Europe.

Now I imagine there are a lot of missing critical details we may not learn for a long time with a legal case in progress.

IANAL

That about sums it up. There were several other fatalities with in a few days by snowmobilers in the same region.

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[swissiphic]

A bit more info to build context.

CAA avy forecast for the day for the Purcells.

http://www.avalanche.ca/forecasts/ar...lls/2016-02-21

I checked successive avy forecasts and found it a bit odd the avalanche incident wasn't reported in the forecast's 'details' section which noted numerous other human trigger, controlled and natural avies over the past week.

I'm interested in learning more about the snow profile details and failure plane. Wonder if the slope was one of the isolated areas with surface hoar on the feb 10th crust.