 Poster: A snowHead
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A US judge who awarded $1.5 million to a skier paralysed in a ski accident - in a landmark case in 1977 - has died.
Former Vermont Supreme Court judge Wynne Underwood presided over the famous case of James Sunday -v- Stratton ski resort. Sunday had caught his ski on an exposed bush and sued the resort. His injuries resulted in quadriplegia. The judge shocked the US ski industry by ruling in Sunday's favour, saying that the resort had a duty to maintain the run. This set off a national debate about skier liability and a wave of skier safety legislation swept the US states. This strengthened the ability of the resorts to defend themselves.
This report from boston.com.
There are lots of references to the Sunday -v- Stratton case on the internet. Here's the lawyer who represented James Sunday 28 years ago: Alan Sylvester.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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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I'm not sure that that has much to do with it. A couple of miles from here a group of swimmers who daily use a lake on Hampstead Heath (public land) which is managed by the City of London Corporation. The Corporation is worried that someone will drown and provides lifeguards. They wanted to stop swimmers going there early in the morning (a long tradition) because they wanted to reduce costs. The swimmers wanted to self-administer the situation but were not allowed. Now there's an attempt to get them to pay an admission charge to swim in a natural pond.
Whatever, if public land is managed by enterprises (ski lift companies, resorts, ski patrols etc.) then I think they have liabilities. I think much US skiing takes place on land which is leased to local ski operations by the US Forest Service (but that needs clarifying/confirming) so I guess it's regarded as public land.
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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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hibernia, are they not? Snowdon until recently was privately owned. The National trust does own some mountains in the UK. I do not know who owns, say, The Grand Mottte at Tignes. I am surprised to see that an assertion that mountains in (presumably Continental) Europe are not privately owned. Can anybody throw further light on this?
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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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David Goldsmith - perhaps in reflection what I meant was that in the USA a lot of resorts are owned or managed by large companies ( again correct me if I got this wrong but it is a perception in the media ) and this combined with the culture of litigation that exists there leads to more possibilities of claims rather than in europe where there is not such a culture and the ownership of the mountains is more fragmanted between local families,public authorites and not so many of these large companies (there is one whose name escapes me that does these developments all over the world ).
For example this " class action " ( amicus curi ) taken by the various companies in the ski industry in the USA would be difficult to see happening in europe due to the fragmanentation of the industry. Apart from the languages problem it would be difficult to get then all to agree on a common approach.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Intrawest is the company I was thinking of.
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