Paralyzed skier gets $14 million because of shitty table top at Snoqualmie

[altasnob]

After a five-week trial, a King County jury on Friday awarded $14 million to a 27-year-old skier who was paralyzed after dropping 37 feet from a ski jump at the Summit at Snoqualmie.

Kenny Salvini, of Lake Tapps, was 23 years old when he went off the jump at the Central Terrain Park at Snoqualmie Central and landed on compact snow and ice in February 2004, said his attorney, Jack Connelly.

During the trial at the Regional Justice Center in Kent, "information came out ... that the man who built [the jump] eyeballed it with a Sno-Cat" rather than engineering a design, Connelly said.

Engineers and an aeronautics professor from the University of California, Davis, testified that the jump was improperly designed and featured a short landing area, Connelly said, adding that ski jumps are supposed to be sloped so that energy from a vertical jump is transferred into a skier's forward motion on landing.

"Going off this jump was the equivalent of jumping off a three-story building," Connelly said. "If you're going to be throwing kids 37 feet in the air, these jumps need to be engineered, designed and constructed properly."

Officials from the Summit at Snoqualmie on Friday afternoon wouldn't answer questions about the incident but released a statement. It said risk is inherent in snow sports, but, "that said, any time there is an incident, our genuine thoughts and prayers are with our guests and their families."

The statement said Summit officials "are disappointed but respectful of the [trial] process."

According to Connelly, other people were injured on the same jump in the weeks before Salvini's accident, including a snowboarder who broke his back. A week after Salvini was injured, 19-year-old Peter Melrose of Bellevue died going off a different jump at the same terrain park, he said.

"There were 10 accidents with eight people taken off the slope in a toboggan" in the weeks before Salvini was hurt, landing on what Connelly said was a flat surface. In all, he said, evidence of 15 earlier accidents was admitted into evidence but "nothing was done" by ski operators to fix or close the faulty jumps.

The full jury award was for about $31 million, Connelly said, explaining that the amount was decreased to $14 million after calculating "the comparative fault" of his client and "the inherent risk of the sport."
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Before he was injured, Salvini, now a quadriplegic, was captain of the wrestling team at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, where he graduated in engineering technology, Connelly said. His mother is now his full-time caregiver.

Over the course of his life, Salvini's medical needs are estimated to cost between $23 million and $26 million, Connelly said.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...paward07m.html

[Rontele]

If the plaintiff's medical needs are estimated to cost between $23 and $26 million, Mr. Connelly should divest the 33% contingency he probably got on this case.

[altasnob]

As sad as it is that the kid got paralyzed, decisions like these will essentially make it impossible for small areas to build terrain parks. Unless you have the resources to use engineers and computer aided drafting to design jumps, you're going to be paying out your ass when someone bails.

I can't wait until someone sues a resort because the cliff they decked on had a flat landing.

[nutcase]

does snoqualmie even have 14 million to throw away like that? Thats alot of money.

[AntiSoCalSkier]

Is this the beginning of the end for terrain parks? Watching the parks explode over the last 5 years, I've been wondering how long the giant jumps will last. Ski area are building features that are so large that they really are only for true experts. A few more lawsuits like this and a lot of resorts will probably stop building the big stuff. Even though I don't hit the big jumps, it would be really sad to lose them to litigation. The terrain park is one of the few places that are challenging on many mountains (think east and midwest), and if you lose that, a lot of the younger generation will lose interest in skiing, especially since the resorts have been mowing down all of the bump runs.

Didn't they have similar problems with skate parks in the 80's?

I'm really not sure how this incident is the resorts fault. Anyone experienced enough to go off a big hit should also be experienced enough to decide if it's safe enough to hit. I know there are jumps (and even whole parks) that I avoid because the jumps are poorly designed. Flying 30 feet through the air is never going to be a safe activity. If you're even thinking about going off one of those jumps, you need to spend some time investigating it. Watch other people hit it. Roll over the lip. Check the in-run for speed. Check the landing for snow quality. Etc. Just because something is open to the public, doesn't mean that it is safe for you to do.

That said, my condolences to the plaintiff.

[Snow Dog]

As sad as it is that the kid got paralyzed, decisions like these will essentially make it impossible for small areas to build terrain parks. Unless you have the resources to use engineers and computer aided drafting to design jumps, you're going to be paying out your ass when someone bails.

The physics is simple and engineers and computers are cheap. Cheaper than $14M, anyway.

Letting employees build ad hoc jumps is dumb beyond words.

[Bandit Man]

Let me first say that being paralyzed is really a tragedy.

For the whole park-scene, ski resort vs. personal responsibility argument, there is a common sense component here. I used to always "scope" hits (in my younger days, of course ) before hitting them full bore. That would give me a real good idea of what was going to happen and how much speed I'd need to hit the transition just right. This more reasonable approach was not inate however, but was rather adopted out of experience. I used to hit anything at full speed with my "I'm in my early twenties and invincible" attitude. I learned the hard way when I rolled into a large table top hit in SoCal and over shot the transition and landed in the flats. Double ejection from my bindings followed, as did a major dislocation of my shoulder. Eventually, I had to have it surgically repaired. It was totally my fault. The hit was large, but I hit it too fast. I used to see it all the time skiing in SoCal and Mammy where the hits are plentiful and there are lots of invincible riders. People need to be responsible for their own actions. That's what I think.

It will be interesting what this will do for park skiing in WA first and other small US resorts who will not be willing to assume the risk of a multi-million dollar settlement.

[jasonsalvo]

The physics is simple and engineers and computers are cheap. Cheaper than $14M, anyway.

Letting employees build ad hoc jumps is dumb beyond words.

Snow Dog, I must disagree with you there. In this case, the plaintiff argued that the kid injured himself because the landing was too short (a mere 77 feet long) compared to the deck (25 feet), the ramp was too steep, and there was no designated starting area. Now, I have jumped many a tabletop in my day, and I have even built a few, and there is nothing about what happened to that kid that a jump designed on a computer could have changed.

A computer can't design a jump that stops people from making bad choices or being bad skiers. It was an icy night, he went way too fast for the jump and overshot the landing, and he was in the backseat when he hit the takeoff, causing him to get inverted. None of those things could have been corrected by an engineer, or an engineered jump.

[BigAirSkier1580]

This is very bad news for the sport of skiing. Personal responsibility is out the window in this country.

As a younger skier in Western New York, the only thing that keeps me stoked on skiing locally is terrain parks.Otherwise, our flat, groomed 600 feet of vertical would be far too boring to ski 40+ times a year. It's the only thing that keeps me challenged around here.

As a park user you have to realize there are huge risks involved. Much higher than skiing down the regular runs at the area. As a park user, I am always asking other riders what type of speed is needed to hit the jump and make the landing. I won't hit anything until I am sure of the speed needed, and always check landings. I will skip jumps with inadequite landings that are too short, too mellow, overly icy, or take-offs that I don't like.

I fail to see how the liability falls on the resort. He wasn't forced to hit the jump. If he thought it wasn't safe, he shouldn't have hit it. He failed in his responsibilites in following the Terrain Park code.

Sucks he got paralyzed, but it's a risk we all take when we put skis on, and I don't feel that the liabaility falls on the resort.

[truth]

I need to ski more park.

[leroy jenkins]

Although I definitly agree that ussually skiers that sue resorts should be shot, I'm kinda happy about this. I'm not much of a parkrat, but I can say that lots of places have no fuckin clue how to build a table. Lots of places jumps throw you too far up, without having a long enough landing. A table should have twice the distance as it does height.

And smaller resorts don't need engineers, they just need skiers/boarders that aren't clueless to build thier shit for em.

[BigAirSkier1580]

Although I definitly agree that ussually skiers that sue resorts should be shot, I'm kinda happy about this. I'm not much of a parkrat, but I can say that lots of places have no fuckin clue how to build a table. Lots of places jumps throw you too far up, without having a long enough landing. A table should have twice the distance as it does height.

And smaller resorts don't need engineers, they just need skiers/boarders that aren't clueless to build thier shit for em.

Then that guy shouldn't have hit that jump if he felt it wasn't safe. He failed to abide by the Terrain Park code of conduct.

Personal Responsibility.

[jasonsalvo]

I personally used the jump this kid injured himself about a week aftwards. My opinion is that the jump was not too short (3:1 ratio of table to landing) and the takeoff was fine. It was that week that I tought myself unnatural spins on that very jump, so I speak from experience when I say that there was nothing wrong with the takeoff. It was a normally shaped, medium sized tabletop of average proportions, nothing more.

[velox]

Hey, I broke my hip this year by hitting an unmarked rock under a foot of fresh powder. That should be worth at least a million.

I feel sorry for the guy I really do it sucks. But when we ski we take on an amount of risk. When you fly up high into the air we take on even more risk.

[lph]

I feel bad for the kid, and I am OK with the ski area getting sued.

If you are gonna build a terrain park, a man made set of jumps, then you damn well better do it right. People get hurt in terrain parks, badly hurt, even on those that are designed by experts. To build a terrain park by 'eyeballing it' is irresponsible and stupid.

Would this kid had gotten hurt going off a well designed jump? maybe so. Would the people in California near the PG&E 'ponds' have gotten sick if the levels of the that chemical were really within the correct range? Maybe so.

In both cases, the ski area/company was just plain stupid. Do things right or not all.

In this case, I just can't jump on the 'ski areas shouldn't be sued' and 'take personal responsibility' bandwagon.

The ski area fucked up, they made the cheap and easy choice, they lose.

[BLOOD SWEAT STEEL]

I feel bad for the kid, and I am OK with the ski area getting sued.

If you are gonna build a terrain park, a man made set of jumps, then you damn well better do it right. People get hurt in terrain parks, badly hurt, even on those that are designed by experts. To build a terrain park by 'eyeballing it' is irresponsible and stupid.

Would this kid had gotten hurt going off a well designed jump? maybe so. Would the people in California near the PG&E 'ponds' have gotten sick if the levels of the that chemical were really within the correct range? Maybe so.

In both cases, the ski area/company was just plain stupid. Do things right or not all.

In this case, I just can't jump on the 'ski areas shouldn't be sued' and 'take personal responsibility' bandwagon.

The ski area fucked up, they made the cheap and easy choice, they lose.

Agreed. Just because it says "skier accepts all responsibility" on the back of the lift ticket doesn't mean it's a green light for ski operators to be sloppy and then blame the customer.

They're just smart enough not to write THEIR responsibilities on the ticket with it.

[boredboiseboy]

I feel bad for the kid, and I am OK with the ski area getting sued.

If you are gonna build a terrain park, a man made set of jumps, then you damn well better do it right. People get hurt in terrain parks, badly hurt, even on those that are designed by experts. To build a terrain park by 'eyeballing it' is irresponsible and stupid.

Would this kid had gotten hurt going off a well designed jump? maybe so. Would the people in California near the PG&E 'ponds' have gotten sick if the levels of the that chemical were really within the correct range? Maybe so.

In both cases, the ski area/company was just plain stupid. Do things right or not all.

In this case, I just can't jump on the 'ski areas shouldn't be sued' and 'take personal responsibility' bandwagon.

The ski area fucked up, they made the cheap and easy choice, they lose.

You put it perfectly. Its kinda reminds me of the local resort here. They had a box-tabletop that people kept getting hurt on. People at the resort thought there was something wrong with the feature, so I belive they removed it. If they would have left it there knowing there was something wrong, and I got hurt on it, I would have sued em too, since that would be intentional negligence. IMO building a jump improperly is definatly intentional negligence.

[Rontele]

does snoqualmie even have 14 million to throw away like that? Thats alot of money.

I am willing to bet that they are not paying a single dime. That is why they have insurance.

[danimal's dead]

I hope Snoq. had some really good liability insurance.

If all the parks close where will all the park rat punks go?
Not the bc I hope.
Or will they all quit skiing altogether?
If all the kids stop skiing and riding because all the parks are closed what will happen to all the little resorts that depend on park rat revenue, will they all close?

Stay tuned, there will be more litigation to come.

[BigAirSkier1580]

So, answer me this question...

Say you buy a car. It is incredibly high powered. You proceed to drive down the road at 100+mph. You Lose control and get into an accident and paralyze yourself.

Are you going to sue the car manufacturer for making a 400hp car that can go above the speedlimit?


Where is the line drawn between someone making a personal error, and it being the Manufacturers fault? Many other people hit this jump without any sort of problems. Does that mean that anytime someone falls and gets hurt, regardless of it being the features fault or the users fault, that feature should be removed?

[WICS]

My view: personal responsibility, agreed.

First, we who want to climb, ski, bike, etc. have to try to pursue some level of (A) life, (B) disability, and (C) medical coverage (maybe not the perfect products available yet -- opportunity people??). I am sure those who ski BC, in AK, etc. have thought about precisely that-- WWMD to prepare for situations when there isn't going to be any toboggan.

Second, I do feel real bad for the guy. I don't have perfect insurance coverage either, so who knows, I (and maybe others of us here) might have sued, too. I can't say because the accident didn't happen to me, and I don't know what his other circumstances/needs in life are (maybe he won the state lottery last year -- am making that up). Sounds like from jasonsalvo's post that the jump was legit -- the guy just hit it in an unfortunate way. In that situation, maybe I'd sac up a posteriori and say, "mah bahd" (or not).

A guess: the larger resorts are going to keep their parks (which I stay away from) a while because seems like a lot of riders view quality of parks as a differentiator for a resort. So that's a real revenue impact, at least right now it seems. Wasn't that jump accident in 2004, and today we seem to have more parks than ever.

Different for smaller resorts: one business argument goes that they should just groom everything. Not speaking from experience running a resort, just a lot of jong spew here.

Agree with LPH: get sued if you jong up a jump. Cue that movie opening scene where kid sacs up and jumps bicycle over small jump (am I thinking Anomoly?-- shit, killed too many brain cells).

Size.
Word.
Can't 1080 nada nada nada.

Unnatural? Whatevah!

Jong out!

(My total posts count just went up by 5%, all you other jong MF yatches!!!!!!)

[BLOOD SWEAT STEEL]

Where is the line drawn between someone making a personal error, and it being the Manufacturers fault? Many other people hit this jump without any sort of problems. Does that mean that anytime someone falls and gets hurt, regardless of it being the features fault or the users fault, that feature should be removed?

Read the original post again. The line is drawn somewhere between $14 and $31 million. To use your analogy:

Many other people drove Ford Explorers without incident also. A few weren't so lucky. There are still lots of them on the road, though. Get it? The court found the resort negligent, not the skier.

The days of handing over $65 to a resort and them saying "Welp, okay, You're on your own!" are over. There are responsibilities associated with charging for a service. Ensuring safe terrain is one of them - Just like they'll tell you their ski patrol does. Terrain parks are calculated, engineered obstacles, not just random piles of snow.

[danimal's dead]

We're talking about some piles of snow here right, not a car or a tank.

Snoq. piled up some snow for people to play on and because they didn't use engineers to build the jump they are liable for a dumbass who probably didn't check out the jump before he hit it and then landed flat.

This is bad news if you like to ski.

For instance, it's sue happy asshats like this guy who have precipitated the restrictive Colorado laws regarding bc access to USFS lands in Colorado along ski resort boundaries.

I think if people want to ski a park they should have to sign a waiver when they buy their ticket or their pass stating that the resort is not liable for any injuries they may incur.

Or we're going to start losing resorts.

[Snow Dog]

Snow Dog, I must disagree with you there. In this case, the plaintiff argued that the kid injured himself because the landing was too short (a mere 77 feet long) compared to the deck (25 feet), the ramp was too steep, and there was no designated starting area. Now, I have jumped many a tabletop in my day, and I have even built a few, and there is nothing about what happened to that kid that a jump designed on a computer could have changed.

You've been on the jump and I haven't but the article suggests that the feature building was ad hoc -- maybe the cat operator knows his (or her) stuff and maybe he doesn't. So Snoqualmie management was ready fail in court.

If I was the King of Snoqualmie there would be a handbook of features that could be built (because they meet whatever guidelines are used to build features and are fun). In the morning the park manager would review the features and
sign off on them. Yes it's CYA but it's also a safety check. Then you could go to court and say "we built a #14 table top and in the past we've had X serious injuries with #14 table tops."

[AntiSoCalSkier]

I find it interesting that people are treating Snoqualmie as a "little resort". They may be small, but they are owned by Booth Creek. Booth Creek owns a lot of smaller day areas (as well as Sierra-At-Tahoe and Northstar). This is not some little company being sued, it's a giant corporation.

(Not that this makes the suit better or worse. I just wanted to clarify who the owners were.)