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  1. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by adrenalated View Post
    What if the biker hits a lawyer? Is there a party?
    Yes? No?

    Cognitive dissonance.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
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  2. #27
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    Biker is sued for assault.
    I have been in this State for 30 years and I am willing to admit that I am part of the problem.

    "Happiest years of my life were earning < $8.00 and hour, collecting unemployment every spring and fall, no car, no debt and no responsibilities. 1984-1990 Park City UT"

  3. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by adrenalated View Post
    What if the biker hits a lawyer? Is there a party?
    Is there a sign on the lawyer? How close to the trail is he?

  4. #29
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    Ski Bowl Halts Biking Operations

    Quote Originally Posted by adrenalated View Post
    What if the biker hits a lawyer? Is there a party?
    Depends if he knocks him over or not.

    FWIW I agree with Toast. It sucks that it hapoened, but its not like it was in the middle of the trail.

  5. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by toast2266 View Post
    Signs are also part of mountain biking. Have you ever ridden an unsigned bike park trail?
    Have you ever seen a sign next to the landing of a big gap jump at a bike park? Do you think that would be an ok place to put a sign?

    There's a lot about the facts of this case neither I, you, or anyone else here knows. I generally have favorable opinions of the legal system of sane states like Oregon, and understand there are a lot of checks along the way before a case goes all the way to a jury trial verdict. Ski Bowl did not appeal the verdict. Instead, they went to the guy and said, cut your award down a bit and we won't appeal and he said yes. If it was such an atrocious verdict and the judge was misapplying the laws, Ski Bowl would have appealed.

    I thought it was unprofessional for Ski Bowl to publicly blame this guy, and the jurors, for shutting down their bike park, and throwing shade at Oregon's tort system. There is an ethical rule for criminal prosecutors that says they should never criticize a jury verdict because doing so causes the public to lose faith in the legal system. Same logic for pro sports penalizing coaches who criticize the refs. You win some, you lose some, but you respect the system.

  6. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by altasnob View Post
    You win some, you lose some, but you respect the system.
    Blindly respecting the system has been the source of a lot of the historical problems in America. And it still is.

  7. #32
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    Doesn't mean you can't advocate for changes that you believe should be made, but there is a more professional way to do so than blaming a paralyzed guy. Ski Bowl made their comments with hopes that they get the exact reaction you see here. Lawyers are evil. Anyone who dares sue a ski area is an asshole. America's tort system is fucked. All other countries on earth let you do whatever you want and so should the US. If the laws aren't changed, there won't even be bike parks, or ski areas, in the state of Oregon. Then Ski Bowl can use that momentum to get Oregon's liability laws relaxed so that they can make more profit.

    20 years ago, when I drove north to bike at Whistler and North Shore Vancouver, I wondered why Washington didn't have the same radical bike trails and I naively assumed it was because of Washington's legal system. Fast forward to today and Washington has insane bike trails that rival anything on earth. Legal trails. Same with Oregon. And the laws haven't changed at all.

  8. #33
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    I don't blame the paralyzed guy too much - I mostly blame the system. The same way I blame the system every time a dumb verdict like this comes up. And some small part of the blame for that dumb system is the plaintiff's bar that keeps propping it up.

    And Washington has good bike trails because, like many states, it has laws that shield the landowners from liability. But that shield doesn't extend to any trails that you have to pay to ride, which is at least part of the reason why Washington only has 1 lift served bike park despite having a huge population of riders.

  9. #34
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    Can’t believe that nobody has mentioned that the guy was a professional biker if I recall correctly. I mean it sucks he can’t ride anymore but way to ruin it for everyone else. As a pro he should understand the risks. Any fall into the thousands of trees any biker passes in a day on single track can lead to major injury. Judging from the picture there’s tons of space there. Ski bowl has always been a resort teetering on the brink. As a resort that some years barely opens because it’s often below the snow line having summer ops had to have been a nice boost and now they’re just back to the alpine slide. Feel bad for the guy, but at the same time fuck him and his lawyer.


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  10. #35
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    So now that Ski Bowl's bike park is shut down, what happens to all those trails? They are on National Forest land, so I assume you can still ride them. And if you don't like pedaling up, I assume you can ebike to the top. And now that no one is paying for a lift ticket, sounds like liability is no longer an issue. And if you just have to ride lifts to bike, head across the street to Timberline's bike park, which opened in 2019 despite Oregon's draconian liability laws.

  11. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by Backward_Banana View Post
    From those of us in the Oregon thread, Lee please let us know if the lawyer's email looks anything like "altasnob", he seems to be the only one really trying to sell this ruling as a good thing.
    I've been looking on PACER and some assorted legal sites. Turned up nothing so far but will check in.

  12. #37
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    PACER is for federal court documents. This lawsuit was in Multnomah County Circuit Court (Portland). I don't think there is any place you can get the pleadings for free. Have to request directly from the court, or the attorneys involved.

  13. #38
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    I flipped through the complaint a couple weeks ago, but I haven't seen any further filings in the case. (And complaints are usually written EARLY in the process before all facts are known/evidence gathered/arguments fully formed)

    I wouldn't be surprised if the plaintiffs put forth an expert and/or cited to some sort of trailbuilding standards from either A) some broad cycling organization like the IMBA, UCI, etc. B) a trade organization representing ski resorts/bike parks, or C) standards that Ski Bowl's insurance company required they follow.

    If that sign's position/construction goes against whatever standards Ski Bowl intends to follow (especially those from B or C) then it would be pretty hard for a jury to find any other way. Makes it a pretty open and shut case if your insurance company tells you "You can't put signs on 4x4 posts next to trails" and you did it anyways...the liability waiver isn't going to save you from that.

    It may seem silly given you can go equally fast next to 10" wide trees, but I think east or bust has the right view of it. Inherent risks exist, but you can't just create NEW risks willy-nilly. Same reason ski resorts put pads on lift towers but not on trees--they created the tower and are responsible for it.

    I don't love the way that shakes out in the courts, but I think there does need to be some mechanism at play to incentivize people not to build unnecessary dangers when alternatives exist. If they had used one of these sign posts that we have all seen on trails, this guy would still be walking:

    Click image for larger version. 

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  14. #39
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    I was practicing in Oregon when the tort limits law was overturned. It was a nightmare for docs. Every conceivable known and expected complication became a multimillion dollar win for patients.


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  15. #40
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    And yes, bike parks can build crazy big dangerous features...

    But situations like this aren't uncommon:
    Click image for larger version. 

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    All kinds of ways you could get hurt on a feature like that while using it as intended. That's the risk you accept when riding a trail like that.

    But see the red pad they strapped to the post that riders crossing underneath would be most likely to hit? They put that post there, it is closer than any of the trees, and they are responsible for it. Adding a pad is a simple way to increase the safety of the park without compromising the feature or the fun of the trail.

    The signpost was dumb. It wasn't $10m of dumb, but part of that $10m is to compensate for the low likelihood that something would happen. If Ski Bowl makes an unsafe decision, but that decision only has a 5% chance of causing a serious injury...then you want to inflate money damages 20X when something does happen to force operators to internalize the risk rather than just roll the dice on their decisions and hope they land in the 95% where nothing bad happens.

  16. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by detrusor View Post
    I was practicing in Oregon when the tort limits law was overturned. It was a nightmare for docs. Every conceivable known and expected complication became a multimillion dollar win for patients.
    Washington doesn't have tort limits and we are still a functioning state. Sounds like a lot of people angry at this verdict come from conservative states and are upset Oregon isn't more conservative.

  17. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by singlesline View Post
    The signpost was dumb. It wasn't $10m of dumb, but part of that $10m is to compensate for the low likelihood that something would happen. If Ski Bowl makes an unsafe decision, but that decision only has a 5% chance of causing a serious injury...then you want to inflate money damages 20X when something does happen to force operators to internalize the risk rather than just roll the dice on their decisions and hope they land in the 95% where nothing bad happens.
    Except $10M+ verdicts make it completely untenable to run a bike park. I guarantee you that the SkiBowl bike park has not brought in $10M worth of revenue in its entire existence. Why would any business want to expose themselves to that liability when all it takes is a very minor (and arguable) oversight on trail safety and one out of control Joey to sink the whole operation?

    The issue here, as is the issue with all of these sort of stupid lawsuits, is that the U.S. doesn't have any guarantee of health care. So when someone gets injured, the cost of those injuries isn't borne by the general population, it's borne by the individual (and, maybe, their insurer). So even though the individual was the one that lost control of their bike and ran into an obviously visible stationary object, that individual starts looking for someone else to hold accountable so they can defray their costs. And the end result is that the injury and the theoretical improvement to public safety is a private transaction that the public isn't involved in, but yet it results in a significant loss for the public at large. So the logical solution (which most other developed countries have implemented) is that the public should be involved in the process, since the public is a stakeholder in the result. The public will pay some or most of the medical bills, the public will set safety standards for the bike parks, and in return, liability of the bike parks will be very limited and the odds of a bike park closing just because some goober veered off the trail are quite low.

    But, of course, that'll never happen because people like Altasnob get a hard on for big jury verdicts and they don't mind seeing bike parks get shut down for stupid reasons.

  18. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by altasnob View Post
    So now that Ski Bowl's bike park is shut down, what happens to all those trails? They are on National Forest land, so I assume you can still ride them. And if you don't like pedaling up, I assume you can ebike to the top. And now that no one is paying for a lift ticket, sounds like liability is no longer an issue. And if you just have to ride lifts to bike, head across the street to Timberline's bike park, which opened in 2019 despite Oregon's draconian liability laws.
    You really do talk out of your ass, like the type of attorney that gives your kind a bad reputation.

    Timberlines “bike park” is vastly different than ski bowl. Flat, sandy berms over there.

    GTFO

  19. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by toast2266 View Post
    The issue here, as is the issue with all of these sort of stupid lawsuits, is that the U.S. doesn't have any guarantee of health care.
    quoting for emphasis. So many societal problems would be solved if we just had health care covered.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  20. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by singlesline View Post
    And yes, bike parks can build crazy big dangerous features...

    But situations like this aren't uncommon:
    Click image for larger version. 

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    All kinds of ways you could get hurt on a feature like that while using it as intended. That's the risk you accept when riding a trail like that.

    But see the red pad they strapped to the post that riders crossing underneath would be most likely to hit? They put that post there, it is closer than any of the trees, and they are responsible for it. Adding a pad is a simple way to increase the safety of the park without compromising the feature or the fun of the trail.
    .
    we had almost exactly the same feature at the local area built illegaly on crown land 20+ years ago by local riders, it did not fit in" the whistler bike park standards" I think the gov was suggesting it should be taken out , since they give us grant money it was cut down
    Lee Lau - xxx-er is the laziest Asian canuck I know

  21. #46
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    Completely agree on the healthcare aspect. A former pro MTB rider is probably not rolling in dough or carrying primo health and disability/AD&D insurance and may have felt no other choice. There's also a chance that this lawsuit was motivated by insurance--can't your insurance company force you to take the other party to court as a condition of their coverage? That's how you get some of those goofy lawsuits where family members are suing each other over stupid things. It always turns out that they are really an insurance lawsuit, but the way our legal system works means you have to sue your sister because your people can't reach a settlement with her homeowner's insurance company (and in court, you can't talk about insurance).

    This is why I really want to see some of the actual reports that were written for the trial. We don't have enough detail...If Ski Bowl's insurance contract said "no fixed posts next to trails" or Ski Bowl had previously received complaints about this post or previously had injuries caused by it, then I think this is a totally valid lawsuit.

    If this was really just a random post that didn't violate any of the standards Ski Bowl aimed to follow and had no history of complaints/injuries, then it is a dumb lawsuit. I've been on a jury for a personal injury trial--its not like most juries don't have people on them who are very skeptical of awarding large sums of money, and those people would need to see pretty compelling evidence to find such a large award (and the defense team would likely need to agree it was compelling to settle for $10m and abandon appeals). In my case, one of the victims basically got the $0 award that says "yes, the defendant is legally at fault, but screw you for filing this lawsuit and wasting everyone's time".

    For what it is worth, Google shows Ski Bowl won a snowboarder-death jury trial a few years back (although later news shows the victim's family was granted a right to a new trial and I couldn't find any more info which suggests a settlement). She hit a tree, but it was alleged that that was caused by dangerous features on the run and that it was improperly graded as a blue run.

  22. #47
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    I wonder if the fact that the guy was a pro rider is what really cost Ski Bowl here.

    In the teen snowboarder case, they basically argued that she was riding out of control and beyond her ability level and it was entirely her own fault, not that of some terrain feature.

    But when the victim is a pro who has ridden more hardcore stuff, has probably ridden the trail in question before, etc...you can't make the argument that he wasn't capable or that he was riding the trail at reckless speeds.

    Makes your defense much harder. And ultimately serious injuries generate larger damages than death. Paralyzed people can testify, and they have high past and future medical costs, lost income, etc.

  23. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by XXX-er View Post
    we had almost exactly the same feature at the local area built illegaly on crown land 20+ years ago by local riders, it did not fit in" the whistler bike park standards" I think the gov was suggesting it should be taken out , since they give us grant money it was cut down
    *Whistler Trail Standards (which are actually very broad and not overly 'limiting')
    https://cyclingbc.net/wp-content/upl...st_edition.pdf

  24. #49
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    I don't see anything in those whistler standards about breakaway posts or the such. In fact they talk about using 100x100mm posts along trails and 100mm ~ 4 inches.

    They do talk about keeping the fall zone around features/corners/descents clear of obstacles, and the sign is within 1.5m of the side of the trail...but I'm not really sure I'd consider that area of the trail a specific fall zone given it looks like a pretty wide and straight section.

    So given that, I'm coming around to the opinion that this may have been a dumb lawsuit.

  25. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by singlesline View Post
    I don't see anything in those whistler standards about breakaway posts or the such. In fact they talk about using 100x100mm posts along trails and 100mm ~ 4 inches.

    They do talk about keeping the fall zone around features/corners/descents clear of obstacles, and the sign is within 1.5m of the side of the trail...but I'm not really sure I'd consider that area of the trail a specific fall zone given it looks like a pretty wide and straight section.

    So given that, I'm coming around to the opinion that this may have been a dumb lawsuit.
    There's nothing in the Imba or Whistler trail standards about breakaway posts.

    There's also no distinction between natural and human-built hazards in the standards.

    Under Canadian law there's also no distinction between natural and human built standards hence why we can build stuff like this in bike parks or on trails. From data from a decade ago insurance for Canadian ski areas was 15% of comparable US areas. Canada and CH was comparable Click image for larger version. 

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