Sheffield skier wins £15,000 damages for knee damage

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riverman, very good points. But how do you empirically measure when that line is crossed? Or is it simply down to the whim of a judge in a courtroom?

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The lift ticket and ski school prices in the US & Canada are significantly more expensive than those of Europe due to the insurance the resort takes out. If this result becomes a landmark case and resorts in Europe have to hike their prices up, then we'll see even more people skiing in N America. Not a bad thing for the consumer. But European resorts will suffer.

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If TOs are prepared to make money out of selling ski lessons then they also must be prepared for the down side of the transaction. It is a simple fact of business in the UK.

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There has to be balance where both sides of a contract pick up their fair share of responsibility. The TO carries the majority of the responsibility as it's providing goods and service, but some take short-cuts. They have 'Ski Hosts' because the term falls outside the law and the 'host' doesn't need qualifications and can be paid a subsistence wage but their 'job' is to show you the resort. They may hire equipment with no qualified staff to service or fit or keep no records of hire or servicing and testing. They may buy old rental equipment for you to use. They may even carry no 3rd. party liability insurance at all. Some call the transfer 'free' because if there is a listed transfer cost, they are required to have drivers who passed their test after 97 to have additional licence qualifications and the vehicle should not be carrying more than 8 people (including the driver) . . . and of course the insurance and vehicle testing/licence costs are higher. Some may even have T&Cs that expect you to have insurance that covers their liabilities.

It should be a level playing field, but it's not. Most of us get through a vacation unscathed . . . but when it goes wrong is not the time to find out that a TO has been playing the odds at your expense.

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After all it is free

Frankly, if the lawyer spent 4 years getting 15grand, I'm pretty surprised he's so pleased with himself. That £15k would cover the lady's operation to fix the ACL (done privately) some physio and not a huge amount else. It's an out of court settlement so no legal precedent has been set so I think the message is that if you fight for 4 years, you might get a TO to give you £15k to go away. I don't think this is going to open the floodgates for a US-style litigation culture!

As to whether the TO should be liable for something like this, I think the answer is no unless there is a choice of ski schools and the one they choose has a reputation for being bad. It depends on what the contract says obviously, but I don't think the TO is actually agreeing to provide the lessons - it's just saying that it will arrange them for you. If that is right, I don't see why they should be liable if the instructor is negligent unless they knew (or should have known) that the instructor was no good

DavidS, sorry for that Pas Deja Vue moment - I must have deleted the double quotes when removing much of the text rolling eyes

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This is an amazing thread which, admittedly, I've skimmed through at break-neck speed. However, what is coming across is something known as the tort of vicarious liability; that is one party being responsible for another's actions.

Personally, I cannot see how the operator can be held responsible for a qualified instructor's actions but even more worrying is the precedent. You can imagine the near future lunacy of having to sign a disclaimer each time you go on a run that is above a gradient of, say, 30 degrees........

The pertinent decision would be to throw the case out of court on the simple argument that skiing is a hazardous activity where risk is inherent.

I once came across acase where an American tourist tried to sue the resort of Chamonix because he had slipped on ice outside a restaurant. Fortunately, the magistrate treated the case with the disdain it deserved.

The next time a poma drag yanks me inappropriately I'm gonna sue the hell out of the lift company......

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Good point.....and thank you.

kevin mcclean, As I've pointed out there is a balance and your Poma comment is right on point.

Do you know if there are regulations regarding the use, maintenance and operation of a Poma lift? ... There are, lots of them.

There is a legal limit to the force that can be exerted on the take-up, which is why there are shock absorbers built into the poles/reels, but these fail through use or lack of maintenance. Add to that a lift operator may override the cable speed governor (easy on older lifts) to get rid of a big queue at the gates . . . you get to the lift, miss time your entry, catch an edge and get your hip dislocated or your pelvis broken ...

... are you responsible cos your skills or physiology are below the poma's performance, or is the Poma outside the regulated performance criteria through neglect or malfeasance?

Who you gonna sue . . . or rather who's your insurer gonna sue? Which is the norm. These cases are not unique and are usually sorted internally within the insurance structure. Court cases occur because the insurance industry can't sort it out internally and then it's down to the individual to sort it out.

There is no underlying flood of frivolous claims in the offing, nor is there a huge rise in premiums for either party. We just need to be more aware of each other's responsibilities and make sure that they are properly honoured.

You know it makes sense.

Arno, good points. We shouldn't blow this up out of proportion.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

I think that this is an increadibly worrying trend particularly for small tour operators. I can only imagine that First Choice (although they have more resorces than the smaller operators I am thinking about particularly) must have some sort of recourse with the ski school themselves, as although in selling the lessons to their client a contract is formed between them and the client there must be another contract existing between them and the ski school. I am also very suprised however, that they were not able to show due diligence on their own behalf ie in showing that the ski school they recommend and sell lessons for has all of the correct licences, insurance and uses only qualified instructors. From the point of a tour operator I'm not entirely sure what more you can do, other than not sell lessons at all at risk of being sued every time someone falls over in one of them. I supose the only other thing that you can do is encourage your guests to be honest about their skiing ability in order to ensure that they do not end up in a class that is beyond their ability.

Incedentally - would she have had a similar case if the fall and the same injury had occured on a blue run for example whilst she was in her lesson?

Was there not a similarly ridiculous claim made against a tour operator a few years ago where someone had had an accident on a lift and they were sueing the tour operator for selling them the lift pass?

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katski, and THAT'S why an impartial commentator (ie. a judge) can tell either party to p¡ss off and grow up.

There is no burden on the smaller TO, they only need to ensure that they comply with the regulations and common sense that apply to the products and services they offer. If they take short-cuts or ignore regulations then they deserve everything the court or the regulatory office throws at them.

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Just to put my oar in here: First Choice use the ESF "Partout en France", and get a massive commission for doing so. Therefore, there was no "choosing" of this particular ski school at all - their Contracts are all done on a national level.

I notice that this was day 5 of the holiday, so the instructor must have been well aware of the woman's ability, and presumably felt she could cope with the run. Obviously I cannot comment on this particular case as I don't know the instructor or the woman concerned. It is a pretty regular occurance that the teacher knows the student has the technical ability to deal with a certain run, but the student is not convinced. However, after successfully completing the run, one hopes that the student will have gained confidence by having done it etc. We all regularly bully, stroke and cajole people into doing descents they don't want to. If this settlement became the norm we would probably all be too scared to do this, and most students would never improve.

I think we're all very concerned that Europe is tending towards the USA's example - very dangerous and undesirable IMO. Shock

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Arno, right on! Too many people play the system with the help of their sneaky little lawyers.

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Tim Brown, That's applicable to BOTH and ALL parties.

Arno, There's the nub, no-one who's not intimate with both sides of a story has any way of being objective and both sides may have merit. If a situation were clear cut a summary judgement is great, but don't blame the legal system for having to deal with matters of law, the judiciary doesn't write them.

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Well, "the system" was extensively changed a few years back by Lord Woolf's reforms. These introduced 'no win no fee' into civil litigation, and removed legal aid from people like skiers who wanted to claim compensation for injuries. Maybe 'sneaky lawyers' became sneakier from those reforms.

I think we're in danger of forgetting that 'duty of care' goes with professionalism. I'd challenge anyone here to say that they wouldn't sue a surgeon who screwed up an operation and caused them disability - yet entering an operating theatre for any operation under anaesthetic carries a risk of death.

What's the reasonable burden of care that goes with being a ski instructor? Does an instructor have any responsibility to choose suitable terrain - or should a pupil accept any risk of injury, perhaps caused by a fall that wouldn't have happened on a slope that had been appropriately selected for ability?

Unfortunately we don't know the full details of this case, but sometimes a party will pull out of a trial if there's a danger that witness evidence is in conflict ... to their detriment. Maybe we can get a leak.

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I wouldn't be happy if instructors started not letting me stretch myself in lessons because they were worried that they might get sued. (And I did break my leg when an instructor took a group down a slope that proved not be really skiable - never occurred to me to sue.)

Tim Brown, Quite right, only last week there was a Lawyer getting a 'celebrity' off a drink drive charge on some technical point.

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boredsurfin, that's a different ball game.

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Duty of care is one thing - being held liable for any and every accident in a class would be entirely different. Skiing is a hazardous activity; in the end all of us choose to do it - or not.

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You know it makes sense.

Arno, perhaps I should have said 'can be applicable to all parties' . As I understand it, the Courts have been quite diligent in summarily dismissing the vast majority of cases and the lawyers have become very selective in the cases they take on (it hasn't been the money stream anticipated). And let's be honest for all the dodgy claimants, there are at least an equal number of dodgy businesses, in this area of litigation it's impossible to stand fixed on one side of the argument and maintain credibility.

On your last sentence I've already agreed with you.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

As an aside, though we're discussing liability/risk issues in skiing in general ...

... The Scotsman today reports a failed claim against Nevis Range by a skier who took a serious fall, high on the mountain in poor visibility, and blamed the mountain's operators for insufficient warning signs.

Here is the report, which states that the claim - from skier Peter Struthers-Wright - was for £700,000 in damages.

A snowHead

Incorrect binding settings:

As an aside to the main thread of this, which on the face of it appears to be totally rediculous, Skiing is a sport (tough one at times), not a picnic or sightseeing outing. The opposite to "Incorrect High DIN setting" of bindings is also dangerous, and from recent experience with hire ski's, seems to be getting worse (claim culture starting to bite ???.). I gave fairly honest details of age ,height, weight, years experience and ability level and the bindings were set accordingly , this was in Austria by the way. I checked the settings and queried them. (I've been skiing over 15 years so I know what minimum DIN settings I can safely ski on). The ski technician would not up the DIN setting quoting the computer settings, he did mutter something about what I did, once I left the shop was my responsibility, fair enough. So I decided to gingerly test the theory. Sure enough without really carving heavily on a bit of cut up piste, one ski released leaving me to finish the turn on a wrong ski (but marginally in control). I was by no means skiing at a level I would expect a ski to release prematurely. I then adjusted up the bindings to what I normally ski at and no further problems. On return to the hire shop after a few days of fantastic conditions, I talked to the guys in the shop about what had happened and they said they were bound by the settings given to them from the computer model and were expected to use these settings according to company policy. Seems to me the whole area of skiing is getting too namby pamby, just like scuba-diving a few years ago (that's my summer sport). So where does a sport like ours go from here ???? Puzzled

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Help!!

Sheffield skier wins £15,000 damages for knee damage

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