 Poster: A snowHead
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| Winterhighland wrote: |
.....It hasn't been tested in court yet, but in Scotland the Land Reform Act expressly places responsibility for their own safety on people partaking in mountain/outdoor sports, and offers landowners, leaseholders and land managers protection from attempts to sue arising from the inherent risks of outdoor mountain recreation. As the Scottish Snowsport areas are not designated as set aside for a specific purpose to the exclusion of others, the Land Reform Act applies to them, it ensures right of responsible access to the Ski Area Land for recreation whether downhill skiing or not.
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What a sensible way for the law to be written.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Thanks for the link Kruisler. I was translating the article for a different purpose so in case it might be helpful to non-French speaking Snowheads, here is a rough translation:
The commune of Font Romeu in the Pyrenées-Orientales has been found liable for damages to a skier who became tetraplegic following a heavy fall on a green slope.
The decision is disturbing for other French ski stations. Font Romeu has been found responsible for a young woman's accident who was made tetraplegic,, as reported by Ouest-France. Alyette Beaufils, who was 23 in 1997, the time of the accident, had skidded on a sheet of ice on a green piste in the Font Romeau skiing area. She left the piste and collided with a rock some metres further on. the victim, from Mayenne, suffered multiple trauma which led to paralysis and cost her many surgical operations.
A long legal battle started for the young woman and her parents who had always considered that the green piste had been badly maintained by the station. In the first instance, the tribunal of Montpellier than the Court of Appeal of Marseille rejected the family's claims for compensation. After the dismissal of an appeal to the Conseil d'Etat and a new dismissal by the Tribunal of Perpignan, the family won success.
The Commune of Font-Romeau was sentenced to pay damages to Aylette Beaufils of €800,000 together with a security of €200,000 to the Caisse Maladie of Maine-et-Loire. The judge has also called on medical experts to determine the cost of the injuries suffered as well as the provision of accommodation adapted for the young woman's handicap.
Heavy consequences since it it ski stations
The lawyers of the ski station speak of a final total which could reach 2 or 3 million euros once the experts have calculated the financial needs caused by the handicap. iIt falls to the station's insurers to decide or not on an appeal since it is they, not the commune, who will bear the responsibility of the compensation costs.
According to Jean-Louis Démelin, Mayor of Font-Romeu, the judgment given by the Court of Appeal of Montpellier constitutes a "first" which could have heavy consequences for all the French ski Stations. "None of them today is able to make the whole length of its pistes secure," he said anxiously.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Tricky one this. I fully agree we accept a degree of risk on the slopes, and anyone who cannot see the risks inherent in ski-ing must be pretty dim.
But I have had moments on piste where I felt that the authorities were taking the p*ss. Patches of bare tarmac left in the middle of a narrow trail for days on end; another trail between a rock bank and a 45 degree drop that was sheet ice for 30 metres; a piste so badly pisted that there was a 30cm step down the middle of it; another where the piste machine had stripped off all the snow from a section leaving it as bare earth.
The position on potholes in the UK is that the council is not liable unless they know about them (hence the websites where you can go on line and report them). Ice should be the same. The town or lift company cannot be expected to know about every patch of ice that develops. But if they do, and if it is in a place likely to cause problems, e.g. beginner slopes, or home run trails, personally I think they have a duty to do something about it. THey are the ones who prepare and grade the piste; they can't then just wash their hands of it.
The end result of this case is (probably) that premiums will rise, and guess what, so will lift pass prices. Let's hope that this will encourage better standards of preparation by authorities who want to keep a clean record.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Given that in the last 15 years since this accident the unfortunate reality is that a number of people will have suffered life changing injuries while on green slopes all across Europe. Given that we are not inundated with reports of €1,000,000 euro payouts its seems a strange conclusion to reach that ambulance chasing lawyers are ruining skiing.
Is it not more reasonable to assume there must have been something exceptional, and thankfully rare, about this case that warranted a 15 year court case and a conclusion that the resort was at fault. This is even more reasonable given the only source of information we have is from a newspaper, and newspapers do have a tendency to be a bit reactionary and scaremongery in order to sell papers, hence the "effects every resort, secure all pistes" comment.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Flet©h,
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Is it not more reasonable to assume there must have been something exceptional, and thankfully rare, about this case that warranted a 15 year court case and a conclusion that the resort was at fault. This is even more reasonable given the only source of information we have is from a newspaper, and newspapers do have a tendency to be a bit reactionary and scaremongery in order to sell papers, hence the "effects every resort, secure all pistes" comment.
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Despite my reluctance to speculate about anything, I am very much inclined to agree with this.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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To add to the confusion, the woman/her lawyers seem to have kept at it until they found a "willing" court as their claim was dismissed 4 times before someone accepted to look at it:
Montpellier court: dismissed
Marseille appeal court: dismissed
Conseil d'etat: dismissed
Perpignan court: dismisssed
Back to Montpellier appeal court: case heard (and won..)
So it really doesn't suggest a clear cut case of negligence... And I suspect the resort will appeal in turn..
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Kruisler, weird system, that, being able to go sideways as well as upwards.
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Pedantica,
Indeed... my knowledge of the French court systems is very poor so I am unsure how it would all be possible..
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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The end result of this case is (probably) that premiums will rise, and guess what, so will lift pass prices. Let's hope that this will encourage better standards of preparation by authorities who want to keep a clean record.
unfortunately i think that all is likely to happen is a similar situation to the uk roads where the local council haven't resurfaced it in line with requirements, ie they just put up a sign saying slippery road surface. So most likely there will be signs all over the mountain saying ice possible, or slippery hill use at own risk etc etc
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| Pedantica wrote: |
| Kruisler, weird system, that, being able to go sideways as well as upwards. |
There are three chains of courts: administrative, criminal and civil (well ok there are employment courts, business courts etc etc). So they original sued in the administrative courts, which is normal as Font Romeu is controlled by the mayor.
It can be quite hard to win in the administrative system because you are basically suing the state and the judges (who may have just qualified from university, and not even in a law degree, maybe political sciences) are employees of the state. There are often a lot of political objectives in play with the administrative system and judges, notionally independent, can have their careers stopped in their tracks if they cross a political player. That is just an aside. The court system is also extremely slow, think Bleakhouse rather than Judge Judy.
The case went up to the French Supreme court (Conseil d'Etat) which decided it could be judged by the civil court system (despite being out of time, the limitation period is 10 years), it then went back to Perpignan then Montpelier but a different court system.
The case turned around the fact that is was a beginners piste and the icy part was in a narrow section of the piste, with a half pipe on one side and trees and rocks on the other. In other words the ice was hard to avoid. The court decided that this section should have been marked to skiers and that netting should have been put in place to protect skiers from the trees. It is a very specific judgment and it looks like negligence by the ski resort.
These days most resorts would put measures in place in such areas.
Last edited by Ski the Net with snowHeads  on Fri 6-01-12 14:02; edited 1 time in total
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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davidof, thanks, interesting. I am shamefully ignorant of the court system in England and Wales, let alone in France.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| pam w wrote: |
| davidof, thanks, interesting. I am shamefully ignorant of the court system in England and Wales, let alone in France. |
my apologies in advance to any French jurists for my "laymans" view of the system. The Administrative System is alien from the UK aspect. This is where you sue the "state" - often mayors.
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davidof, thank you, that's really interesting. Including what the case for negligence seems to be - very specific, as expected.
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You know it makes sense.
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Flet©h, agree entirely. And thank you Davidof.
As a [non-ambulance chasing] lawyer, the Figaro report seems very similar to the kind of story you get in the Mail or the Telegraph, which suggests that just because one person is awarded damages by one judge in one court, on a very particular set of facts, this sets some kind of binding precedent , which will lead to TEOTWAWKI
the only problem is that sometimes insurance companies are dumb enough, or possibly cynical enough, to use this kind of one-off decision as an excuse to increase premiums
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FAQ
