Snowboarder suing Grouse for his fuck up

VinnieFA snowboarder got the go-ahead to sue Grouse because he knuckled a jump upside-down and wrecked himself. Unless I'm missing something it seems like it was entirely his fault, but is suing since he didn't read the liability waivers so is holding Grouse responsible for negligence.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/paralyzed-snowboarder-grouse-mountain-waiver-1.5487916

That's bullshit. It should've been dismissed and stayed that way. I feel bad for the guy, sure now he's a quadriplegic, but unless you're some young kid who uses rail lips as jumps، you know the dangers of the park. Everybody gets hurt at some point during their ski career. According to NSAA, 40+ skiers die, and another 500 become seriously injured. I can't imagine that those figures are incredibly similar for snowboarders.

This is 100% the guys own fault

i feel bad for that guy but i dont think its the resorts fault

He even works for another ski resort and signed a waiver there. This is some serious bullshit and no wonder it got thrown out at first, I can't believe its being allowed to continue

I get it but it sucks. From the start, it's less about fault and more about the result. People in these situations are pretty fucked. Good chance of having extensive medical bills now and pretty much forever. That said, pretty unlikely it was the resorts fault in anyway.

Regardless of the jump, terrain parks are marked pretty damn clearly, most parks have a start fence/staging area above jumps these days because for safety and also the Salvini case etc. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/jury-gives-14-million-to-skier-paralyzed-at-snoqualmie/

Also another lawsuit in Canada is the reason for the S,M,L,XL markers on features. If those were up and they had a staging area of sorts, dude was absolutely in the wrong no matter ho shitty it is. Also, never ridden there but Grouse generally builds legit shit at least the last few years. Anythings possible but unlikely it was a terrible jump in 2016. They were in the top parks poll from that year and the next for Northwest.

One of the big issues with these suits is that juries don't know terrain parks. Lawyers use words like "eyeballed" and make it seem like incompetent people built the jump. A lot of jumps are eyeballed. It might sound shady but for people who have building those jumps for years, they know what a good jump looks like. Jumps are tested by staff and tweaks are made if needed before it's opened to the public, if it's really sketchy somehow it's closed until it can be reworked that night. Jumps re getting constantly maintained and small tweaks are always in order based on the reviews from the day staff guys hitting it. If a jump has been up for a while at a bigger park mountain, it's probably at least fairly legit.

Another issue is pulling in experts. They can get somebody that's an expert in something, to show what happened, and explain that the jump made that happen. Since he landed on his head and short, obviously it was the jumps fault.

They also list injuries on said jump in the time before and after. Maybe somebody else got hurt coming up short the week before. Wouldn't be surprising, big jumps and jerries = knuckles. The problem is that big parks have a ton of customers, even good riders get hurt, and jerrys def have some interesting sends. Unfortunately to a Jury, seeing that 4 people got hurt on a jump in the month before seems like damning evidence that the features was built wrong. Even on the most perfectly built feature, and the best conditions, you can fuck yourself up. Especially if you don't know what you're doing.

Entrances are fenced in, parks have all kinds of safety signs(usually smart style/park smart), you have waivers on lift tickets etc, but sometimes it doesn't matter. It sucks hard in America because theoretically you could win for anything. You could probably drive your car through a parking gate, passed security, up the mountain running skiers over, get to the park, do a fucking barrel roll off a jump, and sue because there was no sign saying "No cars allowed in terrain park" or even if there was, you couldn't see it.

Props to the lawyers fighting on the ski resort side. If it weren't for them, parks would be a nerfed pile of shit if they'd even exist at all. It's also hard to make your average noob feel for a corporation over some poor guy that got wrecked by an "obviously unsafe jump".

In someways the liability aspect has helped to drive standardization in a good way. The wild west days of mountains building totally rowdy shit any place any time is over(mostly). The bigger park programs at least generally follow industry standards. They might build slightly different jump styles, or set there rails a little different, but you could generally ride several of them without issue.

Idk, this shits always scary. The day you have to submit everything you build to some "expert" that's probably never skied, and get it approved before you can open it, I'll get the fuck out and find a new job.

Sucks for the guy, he's seriously fucked, and I can't really blame him for suing(most likely not even his idea), but it's not the resorts fault in most of these cases, and even the few times where they fucked up, the person generally fucked up way harder.

“information came out … that the man who built [the jump] eyeballed it with a Sno-Cat”
and the man who hit the jump eyeballed the speed, it's not park crew's fault

Obviously I feel bad for the guy and can't even imagine how much it sucks to be paralyzed. But there's no way it was anyone's fault but his own. At the entrance of the park there's a big orange and black sign that clearly states that the park contains jumps and rails that require an advanced skill level, and says that u should inspect features properly before u hit them. Also, the jump was quite well-built, so he can't argue that his injury was due to any sort of negligence on the part of the park crew. The jump was also marked with a bright orange sign saying "XL". Moreover, grouse explicitly says that they don't assume any liability if you murk yourself anywhere on the mountain. Everyone who rides grouse should know this because they literally announce it every time u take the gondola (its also printed on the back of everyone's lift ticket). This guy didn't read the bright orange warning signs, didn't read the waiver when he bought his ticket, didn't read the waiver on the back of his ticket, and then made a massive error in judgement. How could that not be his fault?

if lawyers weren't such money-grubbing scum bags, these types of bullshit lawsuits would never even begin. Unfortunately, people value money more than a sense of decency and this shit happens.

chef_boyardeeObviously I feel bad for the guy and can't even imagine how much it sucks to be paralyzed. But there's no way it was anyone's fault but his own. At the entrance of the park there's a big orange and black sign that clearly states that the park contains jumps and rails that require an advanced skill level, and says that u should inspect features properly before u hit them. Also, the jump was quite well-built, so he can't argue that his injury was due to any sort of negligence on the part of the park crew. The jump was also marked with a bright orange sign saying "XL". Moreover, grouse explicitly says that they don't assume any liability if you murk yourself anywhere on the mountain. Everyone who rides grouse should know this because they literally announce it every time u take the gondola (its also printed on the back of everyone's lift ticket). This guy didn't read the bright orange warning signs, didn't read the waiver when he bought his ticket, didn't read the waiver on the back of his ticket, and then made a massive error in judgement. How could that not be his fault?

The court didnt rule on whether Grouse was liable, only that the man could proceed with a negligence claim.

Theres two issues at stake

1 - Did Grouse sufficiently make it clear to the man that Grouse is not liable for its OWN negligence, and

2 - Did Grouse act with negligence of sufficient proximate cause to the mans injuries such that their negligence caused his injuries

The appeals court only ruled that Grouse didnt make it clear enough that they werent liable for their own negligence, so now the guy can go ahead and sue them on his original cause of negligence.

What is negligence - basically if a place has the obligation to protect you from something, and they dont, and you get hurt because of that thing, and it was forseeable that you would get hurt because of that thing, thats negligence. Easiest example is a grocery store has a big spill on the floor, they dont put up a SLIPPERY sign, you fall and hurt yourself: negligence.

Did Grouse act with negligence? Cant tell from the article.

Is the Snoqualmie example a good analog? Not in the immediate case, maybe in the negligence case, we'd have to see the Grouse fact pattern.

Seems like Snoqualmie didnt have a release of liability for negligence (or it wasnt relevant).

Did they act negligently? According to the article, 8 people carried off in a tobaggen in a matter of weeks and the mountain didnt do anything about the jump.

Does that mean idiots bit off more than they could chew? Probably, but the mountain shouldve closed the jump (jump "causes" injury, mountain doesnt do enough to mitigate the chance of injury, someone else gets seriously injured). Otherwise shouldve had or had a stronger release from liability for negligence.

Hope this clarifies.

BedBugDougif lawyers weren't such money-grubbing scum bags, these types of bullshit lawsuits would never even begin. Unfortunately, people value money more than a sense of decency and this shit happens.

If your an average dude that now will never have a real job, face hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and have to find a way to eek through the rest of your life you really have no choice but to sue. Yeah it might be 100% his fault but when your back is to the wall like this you gotta do what you can.

What are you, a fucking 1L?

jstan4The court didnt rule on whether Grouse was liable, only that the man could proceed with a negligence claim.

Theres two issues at stake

1 - Did Grouse sufficiently make it clear to the man that Grouse is not liable for its OWN negligence, and

2 - Did Grouse act with negligence of sufficient proximate cause to the mans injuries such that their negligence caused his injuries

The appeals court only ruled that Grouse didnt make it clear enough that they werent liable for their own negligence, so now the guy can go ahead and sue them on his original cause of negligence.

What is negligence - basically if a place has the obligation to protect you from something, and they dont, and you get hurt because of that thing, and it was forseeable that you would get hurt because of that thing, thats negligence. Easiest example is a grocery store has a big spill on the floor, they dont put up a SLIPPERY sign, you fall and hurt yourself: negligence.

Did Grouse act with negligence? Cant tell from the article.

Is the Snoqualmie example a good analog? Not in the immediate case, maybe in the negligence case, we'd have to see the Grouse fact pattern.

Seems like Snoqualmie didnt have a release of liability for negligence (or it wasnt relevant).

Did they act negligently? According to the article, 8 people carried off in a tobaggen in a matter of weeks and the mountain didnt do anything about the jump.

Does that mean idiots bit off more than they could chew? Probably, but the mountain shouldve closed the jump (jump "causes" injury, mountain doesnt do enough to mitigate the chance of injury, someone else gets seriously injured). Otherwise shouldve had or had a stronger release from liability for negligence.

Hope this clarifies.

SuspiciousFishIf your an average dude that now will never have a real job, face hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and have to find a way to eek through the rest of your life you really have no choice but to sue. Yeah it might be 100% his fault but when your back is to the wall like this you gotta do what you can.

i mean canadas got full medical coverage but hes still paralyzed

skeirmanWhat are you, a fucking 1L?

Wow almost snipe! And in the process exposed yourself as the 5th smartest active user on this site behind whoever most recently graduated high school!

What was the park crew supposed to do? Haul out the jump gauge and make sure it fit?

GKS“information came out … that the man who built [the jump] eyeballed it with a Sno-Cat”
and the man who hit the jump eyeballed the speed, it's not park crew's fault

We live in a material world....just kidding it's Canada. If this shit works ya'll are on a fast pace to becoming a litigious society ala USA. We have skilaw.com billbords on the side of I70 for fucks sake. Did you have a bad day at the mountain?? Let's sue somebody!

Article says the dude is Australian, and he was riding in Canada. So at the time of the incident, he was technically already upside down, so when he landed 'upside down' he was actually landing the right way up all along, should've just rode it out

I’ve gone off that xl at grouse, I have a seasons pass there, if you know what you’re doing it’s super easy. Dude shouldn’t blame the mountain for his own idiocy. Like, ever heard the term “start small”?

ThAtDuDeNaTeWhat was the park crew supposed to do? Haul out the jump gauge and make sure it fit?

I’m wondering the same thing. I wonder who I can sue for all the dirt bike jumps I built that I destroyed myself on in my younger days. People need to take self responsibility for their dumbass actions.

theabortionatorI get it but it sucks. From the start, it's less about fault and more about the result. People in these situations are pretty fucked. Good chance of having extensive medical bills now and pretty much forever. That said, pretty unlikely it was the resorts fault in anyway.

Regardless of the jump, terrain parks are marked pretty damn clearly, most parks have a start fence/staging area above jumps these days because for safety and also the Salvini case etc. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/jury-gives-14-million-to-skier-paralyzed-at-snoqualmie/

Also another lawsuit in Canada is the reason for the S,M,L,XL markers on features. If those were up and they had a staging area of sorts, dude was absolutely in the wrong no matter ho shitty it is. Also, never ridden there but Grouse generally builds legit shit at least the last few years. Anythings possible but unlikely it was a terrible jump in 2016. They were in the top parks poll from that year and the next for Northwest.

One of the big issues with these suits is that juries don't know terrain parks. Lawyers use words like "eyeballed" and make it seem like incompetent people built the jump. A lot of jumps are eyeballed. It might sound shady but for people who have building those jumps for years, they know what a good jump looks like. Jumps are tested by staff and tweaks are made if needed before it's opened to the public, if it's really sketchy somehow it's closed until it can be reworked that night. Jumps re getting constantly maintained and small tweaks are always in order based on the reviews from the day staff guys hitting it. If a jump has been up for a while at a bigger park mountain, it's probably at least fairly legit.

Another issue is pulling in experts. They can get somebody that's an expert in something, to show what happened, and explain that the jump made that happen. Since he landed on his head and short, obviously it was the jumps fault.

They also list injuries on said jump in the time before and after. Maybe somebody else got hurt coming up short the week before. Wouldn't be surprising, big jumps and jerries = knuckles. The problem is that big parks have a ton of customers, even good riders get hurt, and jerrys def have some interesting sends. Unfortunately to a Jury, seeing that 4 people got hurt on a jump in the month before seems like damning evidence that the features was built wrong. Even on the most perfectly built feature, and the best conditions, you can fuck yourself up. Especially if you don't know what you're doing.

Entrances are fenced in, parks have all kinds of safety signs(usually smart style/park smart), you have waivers on lift tickets etc, but sometimes it doesn't matter. It sucks hard in America because theoretically you could win for anything. You could probably drive your car through a parking gate, passed security, up the mountain running skiers over, get to the park, do a fucking barrel roll off a jump, and sue because there was no sign saying "No cars allowed in terrain park" or even if there was, you couldn't see it.

Props to the lawyers fighting on the ski resort side. If it weren't for them, parks would be a nerfed pile of shit if they'd even exist at all. It's also hard to make your average noob feel for a corporation over some poor guy that got wrecked by an "obviously unsafe jump".

In someways the liability aspect has helped to drive standardization in a good way. The wild west days of mountains building totally rowdy shit any place any time is over(mostly). The bigger park programs at least generally follow industry standards. They might build slightly different jump styles, or set there rails a little different, but you could generally ride several of them without issue.

Idk, this shits always scary. The day you have to submit everything you build to some "expert" that's probably never skied, and get it approved before you can open it, I'll get the fuck out and find a new job.

Sucks for the guy, he's seriously fucked, and I can't really blame him for suing(most likely not even his idea), but it's not the resorts fault in most of these cases, and even the few times where they fucked up, the person generally fucked up way harder.

God you should be an expert witness fr tho

TheMailManArticle says the dude is Australian, and he was riding in Canada. So at the time of the incident, he was technically already upside down, so when he landed 'upside down' he was actually landing the right way up all along, should've just rode it out

300iq

Aaaaaand this is why the large percentage of sensible skiers and snowboarders have to take stupid park classes and get scanned in to parks with a separate pass.

thanks a lot, guy

SuspiciousFishIf your an average dude that now will never have a real job, face hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and have to find a way to eek through the rest of your life you really have no choice but to sue. Yeah it might be 100% his fault but when your back is to the wall like this you gotta do what you can.

I wouldn't abandon common decency for money. thats exactly the point i was trying to make. if you make your bed you should have to lay in it.

Honestly, he probably didn’t sue. It’s likely his insurance company/travel insurance company.

that’s often the case.


it’s pretty ridiculous that the area could be at fault in this specific case.

Although, should ski areas be able to compel people through a ticket sale to waive the ski area’s liability in instances where the area’s negligence was material in an injury?


It’s a point of contention in the industry for sure. And I’m not talking about risks inherent to the sport, I'm talking about something like a snow maker leaves a box uncovered on an open run and a kid skis into it and breaks their femur?

Because in a lot of places tickets and season passes have a clause that absolves the area when they are found negligent. I believe the area must be grossly negligent to actually be liable which is a very high standard (e.g. the area does something negligent like leaves a snowmaking box uncovered, but THEN, is aware it’s uncovered, and THEN, decides to not close it).

I’m also disgusted by the tree well death suits being brought against Mt. Bachelor. The plaintiffs allege that the tree wells were both unmarked and in barricaded....like what the fuck? B-Net around every tree?? Signs on every tree about the possibility of a tree well being present?

Why do skiers and riders have no duty to protect themselves and/or educate themselves about the hazards associated with skiing and riding? Why do people view skiing as an amusement park ride where everything is perfectly designed and all they have to do is show up and it’ll all work out ok?


These same people would never go mountain biking on a downhill/singletrack and assume there was no danger, nor would they go to the ocean and swim and be coddled because they didn’t know that an undertow was a thing. It’s crazy.

SuspiciousFishIf your an average dude that now will never have a real job, face hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and have to find a way to eek through the rest of your life you really have no choice but to sue. Yeah it might be 100% his fault but when your back is to the wall like this you gotta do what you can.

casualHonestly, he probably didn’t sue. It’s likely his insurance company/travel insurance company.

that’s often the case.


it’s pretty ridiculous that the area could be at fault in this specific case.

Although, should ski areas be able to compel people through a ticket sale to waive the ski area’s liability in instances where the area’s negligence was material in an injury?


It’s a point of contention in the industry for sure. And I’m not talking about risks inherent to the sport, I'm talking about something like a snow maker leaves a box uncovered on an open run and a kid skis into it and breaks their femur?

Because in a lot of places tickets and season passes have a clause that absolves the area when they are found negligent. I believe the area must be grossly negligent to actually be liable which is a very high standard (e.g. the area does something negligent like leaves a snowmaking box uncovered, but THEN, is aware it’s uncovered, and THEN, decides to not close it).

I’m also disgusted by the tree well death suits being brought against Mt. Bachelor. The plaintiffs allege that the tree wells were both unmarked and in barricaded....like what the fuck? B-Net around every tree?? Signs on every tree about the possibility of a tree well being present?

Why do skiers and riders have no duty to protect themselves and/or educate themselves about the hazards associated with skiing and riding? Why do people view skiing as an amusement park ride where everything is perfectly designed and all they have to do is show up and it’ll all work out ok?


These same people would never go mountain biking on a downhill/singletrack and assume there was no danger, nor would they go to the ocean and swim and be coddled because they didn’t know that an undertow was a thing. It’s crazy.

I can say from experience that bachelor has been very clear about tree well danger warnings

I would imagine so, do you know if that was the case going back to 2018? I think that was when the deaths happened (on the same day).

abar.I can say from experience that bachelor has been very clear about tree well danger warnings

Agree re gross negligence.

Any idea to what degree the signs at the top of runs that say "unmarked hazards exist" covers a hill? Obviously they cant mark every tree well, rock, etc. so does a blanket sign like that cover the resort for not marking stuff? and then does that allow the resort to in turn be lazy about marking actually dangerous stuff on runs?

Its interesting because as shown in the snoqualmie case parks are a whole different animal as to what risks are assumed and how you determine negligence

casualHonestly, he probably didn’t sue. It’s likely his insurance company/travel insurance company.

that’s often the case.


it’s pretty ridiculous that the area could be at fault in this specific case.

Although, should ski areas be able to compel people through a ticket sale to waive the ski area’s liability in instances where the area’s negligence was material in an injury?


It’s a point of contention in the industry for sure. And I’m not talking about risks inherent to the sport, I'm talking about something like a snow maker leaves a box uncovered on an open run and a kid skis into it and breaks their femur?

Because in a lot of places tickets and season passes have a clause that absolves the area when they are found negligent. I believe the area must be grossly negligent to actually be liable which is a very high standard (e.g. the area does something negligent like leaves a snowmaking box uncovered, but THEN, is aware it’s uncovered, and THEN, decides to not close it).

I’m also disgusted by the tree well death suits being brought against Mt. Bachelor. The plaintiffs allege that the tree wells were both unmarked and in barricaded....like what the fuck? B-Net around every tree?? Signs on every tree about the possibility of a tree well being present?

Why do skiers and riders have no duty to protect themselves and/or educate themselves about the hazards associated with skiing and riding? Why do people view skiing as an amusement park ride where everything is perfectly designed and all they have to do is show up and it’ll all work out ok?


These same people would never go mountain biking on a downhill/singletrack and assume there was no danger, nor would they go to the ocean and swim and be coddled because they didn’t know that an undertow was a thing. It’s crazy.

casualI would imagine so, do you know if that was the case going back to 2018? I think that was when the deaths happened (on the same day).

I believe so

Americas lawsuit fetish is fucked up beyond all recognition.

i think if you murdered every unaccountable burger who sues a a ski resort, God would still let you into heaven.

no person or business, no matter how wealthy, Should be obligated to pay for natural selection

**This post was edited on Mar 9th 2020 at 4:41:23pm

TheMailManArticle says the dude is Australian, and he was riding in Canada. So at the time of the incident, he was technically already upside down, so when he landed 'upside down' he was actually landing the right way up all along, should've just rode it out

Grouse needs a new defence lawyer

TRVP_ANGELGrouse needs a new defence lawyer

better call the mailman

tri_photoAaaaaand this is why the large percentage of sensible skiers and snowboarders have to take stupid park classes and get scanned in to parks with a separate pass.

thanks a lot, guy

Snoqualmie Pass doesnt have a park pass or any sort of mandatory safety class. They had the $14M lawsuit years ago that was linked earlier.

RudyGarmischSnoqualmie Pass doesnt have a park pass or any sort of mandatory safety class. They had the $14M lawsuit years ago that was linked earlier.

That was mostly because bro was on the hook for millions of dollars worth of medical bills, I thought this stuff wasn’t supposed to happen in the Canadian socialist utopia??

Aussi living in Whis gets injured at Grouse. I'll bet my left nut he was on drugs at the time. boom lawsuit dropped. Someone tell Grouse.

I feel bad for the guy but he has no one to blame but himself.

Correct, but up until this season, it was required, which sucked haha

RudyGarmischSnoqualmie Pass doesnt have a park pass or any sort of mandatory safety class. They had the $14M lawsuit years ago that was linked earlier.