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  1. #51
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    I'm an ex ski racer and have 5 seasons in CO, 3 in UT, the rest in OR/WA, and skied most major ski areas in NA. So I have some perspective. I disagree the ski area did nothing wrong when an out of control, drunk snowboarder, plows into an innocent party standing in plain view on the run. There are steps resorts can take (and do take) to try to prevent this. Ski areas already have the no fun police out in force irregardless of this law. Even if Bill Gates is that drunk snowboarder, just like in auto accident cases, it is extremely rare for a plaintiff to go after the individual (because it is difficult to collect from individuals; you may have to garnish wages; instead plaintiffs go after insurance limits).

    I am not arguing ski areas do not do an adequate job of keeping ski areas safe and need to be even more uptight. I am arguing there is no harm with the public being able to see accident/death statistics and doing whatever one wants to do with those statistics. To me, the increased liability and costs is speculation. Same with the argument ski areas will dramatically alter their safety practices if these statistics were released. The skiing trade group already publishes nationwide statistics on accidents/deaths. The new law would allow people to verify that data and see where those accidents/deaths are actually occurring.

    So what is the public policy argument for keeping this data secret? That the public isn't smart enough to intelligently make choices based on that data? Why would anyone care if someone righteously and legitimately sues a ski area and prevails? Is everyone's view of personal injury law really so jaded to believe the majority of plaintiffs litigation is just someone wrongfully extorting another person? If that's peoples' opinion, I can think of a whole host of industries we need to start shielding from liability.

  2. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by altasnob View Post
    The ski areas have safety plans regardless of this law. The law was attempting to make those safety plans public. Even without the law, those safety plans would likely be disclosed to the plaintiff in a lawsuit through discovery and if the resort doesn't want the world to see it, it would have a protective order not to disclose.

    A 10 year standing on top of the knoll who gets mowed down by a reckless snowboarder has done nothing wrong. The reckless snowboarder does not have deep pockets so suing them is worthless (just like suing an uninsured motorist is worthless). The ski area can prevent these accidents by having slow skiing signs, and employees on the slopes yelling at people to slow down. In areas where risk of collision is high, they can even put up fences where people have to come nearly to a stop to get through. Ski areas do this. Opening up accident data would allow the public to make sure ski areas can do this. An innocent 10 year old could be hurt, and Mikaela Shafer could be hurt innocently. Does not matter how bad ass anyone thinks they are. In this scenario, the snowboarder is 100% at fault and so the injured party is a passive participant just like the roller coaster rider.
    The idea that it's ok to sue the innocent deep pocket because the guilty party has no money and juries will sympathize with the victim and figure the deep pocket can afford it sucks. The idea that every tragic outcome deserves monetary compensation sucks--but if our legislators wanted to they could establish a no-fault compensation fund for ski injuries. Somehow I don't think that would go over well with the mostly non-skiing-can't afford-to-ski public. (And while we're at it--why are we paying for covid funerals but not heart attack or cancer or gun violence funerals?)

    The question is not " what is the public policy argument for keeping this data secret?" The question is--what is the benefit for collecting it and publishing it? I'm still waiting for an answer. There ought to be a clear public benefit before we enact any law.

    I'm tired of this discussion. I think I'll shut up.

  3. #53
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    The plaintiff's and defendant's financial well being is supposed to be irrelevant at trial. I would agree that when the plaintiff is a person and the defendant is Vail the jury will speculate that person has no money (could not be true) and that Vail is loaded. In an auto accident case, the jury does not know the at fault driver had insurance. So the jury assumes it just a person vs. a person when in fact it is an insurance company who will end up paying. Most states have comparative fault so when that drunk snowboarder kills a 10 year old and is sued the jury could find the drunk snowboarder is 90% at fault and Vail 10%. The snowboarder won't pay anything (because the plaintiff won't want to go through the hassle to collect) and Vail will only pay 10% of the verdict.

    Believe it or not, the US legal is system is pretty damn fair. Not perfect, but the best on earth.

  4. #54
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    I also don't really understand the point of this legislation, there are already criminal penalties if you get drunk and kill someone while riding or civil penalties if a ski area is grossly negligent (I know it's really rare for this to happen). To me it just seems like rubber necking culture, for whatever reason people love to read about other's mishaps.

    Also, we do hear about the situations that fall into a gray area through news reports. I just don't see what can be gained by knowing that Jersey Jerry texas tucked into a tree on a black run and broke his neck, what good does that do?

  5. #55
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    This is what happens when non skiers try to make money. They are just lawyers getting paid for doing something. Today they decided on ski resorts. Yesterday, it was a swimming pool, tomorrow it will be skateparks. Can you imagine paperwork’s on every single small injuries at city owned skateparks? Fucking lawyers.


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  6. #56
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    Politicians too gutless to take on any real issues but always ready to create an issue in order to appear to actually be doing something productive. And it always seems that these new initiatives affect the most responsible and law abiding members of the public, rarely have any effect on the lawbreakers themselves.

  7. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by altasnob View Post
    The plaintiff's and defendant's financial well being is supposed to be irrelevant at trial. I would agree that when the plaintiff is a person and the defendant is Vail the jury will speculate that person has no money (could not be true) and that Vail is loaded. In an auto accident case, the jury does not know the at fault driver had insurance. So the jury assumes it just a person vs. a person when in fact it is an insurance company who will end up paying. Most states have comparative fault so when that drunk snowboarder kills a 10 year old and is sued the jury could find the drunk snowboarder is 90% at fault and Vail 10%. The snowboarder won't pay anything (because the plaintiff won't want to go through the hassle to collect) and Vail will only pay 10% of the verdict.

    Believe it or not, the US legal is system is pretty damn fair. Not perfect, but the best on earth.
    Again, not an attorney but I think our premise isn't necessarily accurate. Depending on the state, joint and several liability rule may come into play. Unless I'm misunderstanding this, each found party has full responsibility for the award regardless of their percentage share of negligence. So, in your example, drunk snowboarder has 90% responsibility for the accident and Vail 10%. Snowboarder is broke, can't pay so the full burden of the award goes to Vail as the financially able contributor. So, to your point, I guess it depends on the state where the accident occurs.

    As for why the attorneys don't pursue the snowboarder, it's because he doesn't have money and it's irrelevant. If they can find Vail even just a bit negligent, they win, which is why public access to a safety plan that a jury could find where Vail was slightly at fault is a bad idea. You state the plaintiff's and defendant's financial well-being is supposed to be irrelevant would be more believable if the written law supported that practice. In some states, it doesn't.

    "When an event causes injuries, one of the first questions on most people's minds is one of blame: "Whose fault was it?" All states follow principles of comparative fault. When multiple parties are alleged to be at fault, the jury will allocate responsibility to all parties claimed to be at fault, as well as any other responsible people. But from whom can the plaintiff actually collect damages? Different states follow different rules regarding "joint and several liability."
    In states that follow the traditional joint and several liability rule, each tortfeasor is liable for all of the plaintiff's damages, regardless of his or her degree of fault. Generally, in states that do not follow the doctrine of joint and several liability, the plaintiff can only recover from any given defendant according to that defendant's percentage of fault."

    https://www.justia.com/injury/neglig...ry-negligence/

  8. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by tmokes View Post
    This is what happens when non skiers try to make money. They are just lawyers getting paid for doing something. Today they decided on ski resorts. Yesterday, it was a swimming pool, tomorrow it will be skate parks. Can you imagine paperwork’s on every single small injuries at city owned skateparks? Fucking lawyers.
    Data and reports on serious injuries/deaths at swimming pools operated by a city, and skateparks on city land, are available to the public. If it is a government entity, every record created is available to the public unless specifically exempt from statute (general public record law in every state). If it is on private property, then no. I would have no problem if the new ski law was limited to ski areas that do business on public property. What ski areas are on private property? Yellowstone Club? A lot in the Rockies are on both private and public land.

    The Summit-News article I posted awhile back shows the impetus for this new law. Summit News was trying to do investigative journalism (dying bread) on ski area injuries and deaths in CO. They made public records requests to coroner's office of all CO counties and from that data, were able to deduce how many deaths occurred at each ski area each year. But they could not see serious injuries that did not result in death. And they were limited to what was in the coroners report.

    Others can chime in, but I assume climbing/skiing/rafting/hiking guides who do business on public land must disclose serious injuries/deaths to the forest service. I assume this would be part of the their contract with the forest service? For some reason, ski areas were able to convince law makers that they should be immune from this requirement despite the fact they make incredible profits using public resources. And people complain about Vail/Alterra and today's shopping mall ski experience.

  9. #59
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    ^^ Part of any lease agreements may include the requirement to report accidents/injuries to the public entity but, in turn, it may also restrict the entity from releasing that information to third parties. Just spitballing on that.

    As for accidents on public property operated by public agencies, those are paid for by the broader public and would have public records requirements. A lessor of public land for private enterprise isn't the same thing.

  10. #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by GoldMember View Post
    You state the plaintiff's and defendant's financial well-being is supposed to be irrelevant would be more believable if the written law supported that practice. In some states, it doesn't.
    Not supposed to be, it is. Every state in the US has an evidence rule that states:

    Rule 401. Test for Relevant Evidence

    Evidence is relevant if:
    (a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and
    (b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action.

    In a liability case, the person or company's worth would be irrelevant to whether the person/company is at fault. Accordingly, this evidence would be excluded from the jury. Old Goat contends that juries do improper things, and when the plaintiff is a person, and the defendant is Vail (or a doctor, who juries would speculate is covered by insurance regardless of whether they are told this at trial), the jury feels sorry for the plaintiff and figure the big bad defendant can handle paying up (even if the defendant did nothing wrong). But juries are specifically told not to do this or think this way. And while I would concede jurors do not follow their instructions 100% of time, you would be surprised on how serious juries take their jury duty. Remember, a jury pool starts out as 100 jurors and through questioning and strikes, gets whittled down to 12 jurors. So the crazy wack jobs (normally) get struck.

  11. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by altasnob View Post
    I disagree the ski area did nothing wrong when an out of control, drunk snowboarder, plows into an innocent party standing in plain view on the run. There are steps resorts can take (and do take) to try to prevent this. Ski areas already have the no fun police out in force irregardless of this law.i
    I am going to assume that this is an honest opinion and not trolling... Nevertheless, as a patroller at a small ski area, I can tell you that there is not a g-d...m thing a ski area can do in advance to prevent something like this. What you describe is not an issue with marking hazards, it is not a "policing" issue; it is an interaction between someone who is wholly blameless and a jerk who doesn't give a shit and is 100% at fault.

    Patrol can pull the jerk's ticket after he (or she) has come to their attention, but it will be mere chance that he does something egregious beforehand. To hold a ski area liable for the actions of the jerk would be a miscarriage of justice.

    The "safety plan" aspect is particularly pernicious. I can almost guarantee that this would cost ski areas a pile of money in consultant and legal fees, and result in absolutely no improvement in actual accident rates. The plans will be so generic and so full of exclusions and limitations that they will be utterly useless, except perhaps to potentially penalize those areas where patrol tries to go above and beyond to mark some natural hazards in addition to man-made hazards.

    I am pretty indifferent to to release of statistics, however, at a small ski area where there are relatively few accidents, it might be difficult if not impossible to completely protect patient privacy.

  12. #62
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    I never said ski areas should be liable for drunk snowboarders. This thread keeps coming back to ski area liability, when again, I believe it is transparency and open records. I think you would agree with me that patrol does what it can to prevent drunk snowboarders from killing people. If you see someone obviously intoxicated slamming beers at the top of a lift, that person is going to be trouble.

    The safety plan part of the law is dumb if it requires resorts to do extra work that they aren't already doing. But you tell me. I assume every ski resort already has a safety plan. Why shouldn't this already existing safety plan be public record? Old Goat's worry that failure to adhere to the plan would increase liability is moot because in any litigation, the plaintiff would already get their hand on that safety plan.

    I'm glad you agree releasing statistics wouldn't be a problem. If the cops are called to an accident/death at the resort, that police report is already public record, with protections for the person's privacy. So the privacy issue could be dealt with.

  13. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by altasnob View Post
    I never said ski areas should be liable for drunk snowboarders.
    But the thing is, it's not your decision if the area is liable, it would become the jury's decision and you don't know how that would go.

  14. #64
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    How do these people plan on making skiing safer?
    Last edited by unclebill; 05-07-2021 at 09:53 AM.

  15. #65
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    I remember hearing about why the ski resort doesn’t sue skiers... bad PR.

    Well, one way to keep skiers safe would be to sue them for things like skiing out of control because you agree to it when you bought the ticket. Also sue them for any ski patrol service. Skiers will dial it down a notch if they knew it may cost $10k for a knee injury.

    When skiers sue the resort, counter sue them for emotional distress on ski patrol, actual service provided by ski patrol, if they had to close a run for investigation, tack that on to the total equal to what the plaintiff is asking for and make the law suit a wash. Not only that, hiring lawyers is going to be a bit more expensive because if it’s a wash, plaintiff has to pay for it and costs more because of longer trial because not only do they have to blame the defendants, they also have to defend their clients from the counter suit.


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  16. #66
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    And if this was the case, most serious skiers will carry his/her own insurance.


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  17. #67
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    glad this bill died. This would have only made skiing more expensive and forced ski patrols to be more restrictive with terrian openings, etc.

    Maybe some of you don't remember skiing pre-2000, but it was a totally different beast then. You'd get in trouble with ski patrol for catching air, going fast anywhere, leaving resort boundaries, etc. it was those restrictions that allowed snowboarding to grow as a counter-culture to skiing, and ultimately allowed ski resorts to loosen their reigns.

    Let's not forget the past and roll back the clocks to when skiing inbounds kinda sucked.

  18. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by brutah View Post
    glad this bill died. This would have only made skiing more expensive and forced ski patrols to be more restrictive with terrian openings, etc.

    Maybe some of you don't remember skiing pre-2000, but it was a totally different beast then. You'd get in trouble with ski patrol for catching air, going fast anywhere, leaving resort boundaries, etc. it was those restrictions that allowed snowboarding to grow as a counter-culture to skiing, and ultimately allowed ski resorts to loosen their reigns.

    Let's not forget the past and roll back the clocks to when skiing inbounds kinda sucked.
    I remember this quite well at our local hill. Patrol used to pitch a fit for skiing out of bounds, catching air, skiing plenty lit lines even if they're marked closed, etc. Now patrol just looks the other way and doesn't really care.
    They used to mark each and every obstacle on the hill with bamboo, now they don't mark a single obstacle.

  19. #69
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    Quote Originally Posted by brutah View Post
    glad this bill died. This would have only made skiing more expensive and forced ski patrols to be more restrictive with terrian openings, etc.

    Maybe some of you don't remember skiing pre-2000, but it was a totally different beast then. You'd get in trouble with ski patrol for catching air, going fast anywhere, leaving resort boundaries, etc. it was those restrictions that allowed snowboarding to grow as a counter-culture to skiing, and ultimately allowed ski resorts to loosen their reigns.

    Let's not forget the past and roll back the clocks to when skiing inbounds kinda sucked.
    Reminiscent of when terrain parks first started being built and insurance was forcing the removal of them. I'm not entirely certain (not a park guy) what changed to allow terrain parks complete with inverted aerials, etc. but was that a bad thing? It all again came down to personal responsibility so far as I see it.

    We have a gate to enter the terrain park at Schweitzer and you have to pass a simple test and pay $5 for a park pass to enter. I'm sure that this is intended to be part of an awareness program but also to show insurance that you're taking reasonable steps to educate the public. Of course, the gate's not always manned and people ski through there who don't have the pass at times but, to my knowledge, it hasn't been overly abused.

  20. #70
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    Quote Originally Posted by tmokes View Post
    And if this was the case, most serious skiers will carry his/her own insurance.


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    Yes you're on the right track get everyone prepared for law suits with insurance, especially the "serious skiers". Get the government more involved is the way to make it safer. Mandatory insurance, annual equipment inspection and certification, license/permit with visible id tag at all times. Maybe fitness evaluation, mandatory lessons and graduated ski pass levels and color coded helmet restricting the skier to only qualified terrain. Limits on number of runs/vertical per day. I'm sure they can come up with more given the chance.

  21. #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by GoldMember View Post
    You never owned an old British sports car, did you...
    I’m not stupid


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  22. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by MagnificentUnicorn View Post
    I’m not stupid


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    Yeah, well, I was... 1961 Triumph TR3A. Fun car, when it ran. Not fun when paying the mechanic...

  23. #73
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    Quote Originally Posted by mtnjam View Post
    I remember this quite well at our local hill. Patrol used to pitch a fit for skiing out of bounds, catching air, skiing plenty lit lines even if they're marked closed, etc. Now patrol just looks the other way and doesn't really care.
    They used to mark each and every obstacle on the hill with bamboo, now they don't mark a single obstacle.
    If you mark a lot of obstacles you are potentially liable for unmarked ones. Around here they mark man-made obstacles--like the remnants of old lifts--and cliffs, which is doable, but not exposed rocks and stumps etc. Thanks Obama.

  24. #74
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    Business people love saying 10X and if there's one thing Vail has 10Xed since buying Crested Butte, it's the number of signs, ropes, and bamboo strewn across the mountain since they took over. I've never seen a resort operator more in love with signage than Vail. At least patrol seemed to call the shots on openings, that's actually gotten much better since Frank Coffey finally retired. More than once I've seen their legal army on the slopes, pointing out areas to add ropes and signs. Midway through this season, every chair suddenly had a cam strap attached to it, apparently so the seat bottoms could no longer be moved up (remember when they used to do that when it snowed overnight?). In their defense, rumor has it that there was an actual lawsuit over that one.

    There was no reason for this bill- resort operators are already risk averse when it comes to lawsuits. And I don't see why the skiing public really needs to know the exact number of accidents every year any more than they need to know the exact number of accidents at public swimming pools, tennis courts, or hiking trails either. You can get hurt doing lots of things, that's life.

  25. #75
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    Quote Originally Posted by goldenboy View Post
    There was no reason for this bill- resort operators are already risk averse when it comes to lawsuits. And I don't see why the skiing public really needs to know the exact number of accidents every year any more than they need to know the exact number of accidents at public swimming pools, tennis courts, or hiking trails either. You can get hurt doing lots of things, that's life.
    I think the bolded statement really captures it. And maybe not so much the operators but their insurance carriers, I believe, perform risk assessments on their own when underwriting resort insurance. With that, having another level of government interference only muddles the situation. Again, this was a personal injury attorney's wish list.

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