The Oregon Supreme Court has allowed a $21 million lawsuit against Mt. Bachelor Resort to proceed, overturning two lower court rulings, and saying the liability waiver that Myles Bagley signed when he purchased his season pass is unenforceable, according to a story in the Bend Bulletin.
The court’s opinion is that the resort’s release is offered on a “take-it-or-leave-it basis” and that doesn’t mean the resort is free from any liability resulting in conditions the resort created, according to the story.
“As Mt. Bachelor is open to the general public largely without restriction, and visitors subject themselves to the risk of harm from conditions created by the resort operators, the safety of resort visitors “is a matter of broad societal concern,” the opinion stated. . . . The court found there are “inherent risks” to skiing and snowboarding but those risks do not justify insulating ski area operators from all liability.. . . Skiers and snowboarders have important legal inducements to exercise reasonable care for their own safety by virtue of their statutory assumption of the inherent risks of skiing,” read the opinion. “By contrast, without potential liability for their own negligence, ski area operators would lack a commensurate legal incentive to avoid creating unreasonable risks of harm to their business invitees.”
Bailey was paralyzed from the waist down after breaking two vertebrae while snowboarding at Mt. Bachelor in February of 2006, according to The Bulletin. Obviously, this new court opinion could open the doors for all manner of injury lawsuits against resorts, and we will be following it with interest. Compared to the tight “no-jump” policies of the 1980, resorts have had freedom to create bigger and bigger features in their snowboard parks over the last decade. It seemed only a matter of time before someone blamed the builders of the jump for the injuries of a jumper. For the rest of the story, please click the link.
[Link: Bend Bulletin]
