IMPORTANT NEWS - Jury gives $14 million to skier paralyzed at Snoqualmie

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This is huge news. Possibly the beginning of easily accesible terrain parks.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003655847_skijumpaward07m.html

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."

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.

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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.
 
yes it is your own responsibility to make sure what you hit is safe. but if this verdict leads to better and more careful terrain park design i see it as a good thing
 
yeah but if the park builders have no idea how to build a jump then they are creating something that is unsafe and should be closed or fixed.

as an example, they recently built a new skate park here in slc, and the city just hired the same people to build the bowls, who pave flat sidewalks. needless to say the tranny was all fucked.

well the city didn't just leave it and assume that kids would realize it wasn't safe and not ride it. sure those who are smart enough wouldn't, but others would and would get hurt, so the city closed that bowl and fixed it. problem solved.

there is a thing called due dilagence, and it seems that this resort didn't do theirs. if kids were getting smoked due to poor jump construction then it should have been fixed.
 
What it's going to lead to is smaller areas not being able to afford the potential financial risk of a terrain park if someone screws up and decides to sue.

Which will effectively help kill skiing in the mid-west, and small areas in the northeast.
 
alright so i don't5 think it was the resort's fault at all, however, if you get paralyed what else are you going to do? medical bills for handicapped people are extremely high, where else is this guy going to get the money? despite whether this guy actually thought it was the resort's fault, he needed to sue in order to pay his medical bills.
 
yea but resorts will be a lot more skeptical to build larger jumps for fear someone is going to hurt themselves to bad.
 
That statement is the EXACT problem with the United States now.

Noone is willing to face the responsibilities of THEIR OWN ACTIONS. The guy went far too fast, overshot a landing, and injured himself because he didn't follow proper guidelines for hitting terrain park features.

He put himself in the situation. And a ski area shouldn't have to foot the bill of someones own personal ways.

Say you are driving down the road, going 95mph in your car. You get in an accident. You are paralyzed. Are you going to go sue the car manufacturer for allowing the car to go 95mph?
 
I agree, unsafe features should be closed. But what's to say that the feature really was unsafe? From an account of someone who had hit that jump before, it was a perfectly acceptable jump.

How do we decide on what a safe jump is, and when the user error came into play?

On-top of the fact that there is no such thing as a safe jump.
 
i dont understand how that big orange sign at the beginning of the park doesnt come into play here. doesnt it say that the resort is not liable for people being retards? with slogans like "look before you leap" and "easy style it" and shit...
 
Hey man, I didnt say it was right, but what other choice does this guy have? He can't just hold a bake sale.

The fact is somehow you have this ideal that everything is supposed to fair, but really, this world is not fair. Saying things are fucked up is like saying that a zebra has stripes, everybody already knows. So unless you go paint that zebra a solid color, unless you're actually doing something about it you're really just wasting your breath right? Please excuse the cynicism, but really it's like that.
 
Well this guy would have never had a case had the jump been built from a engineered design. So perhaps what needs to happen is an index of different jumps and landed that are engineered properly. That way smaller resorts could still build proper jumps.

some people in this thread are correct, this will just make it harder for smaller resorts to build terrain parks.
 
yea but he's a little bitch to snake a resort out that much money for something that was probaly his fault i mean shit its fucking snoqualmie
 
maybe before you make a statement like that you should actually research this. then you would realize that being paralyzed is incredibly expensive.
 
"people suing ski areas should be shot" period. no way should a ski area be held liable for someone making a poor decision. should we close all ungroomed runs? maybe cut down all the trees? definitely need to rope off all cliff and rocked areas, huh? if this guy didn't know how long and exactly where the landing was, he never should have hit the jump. i certainly have sympathy for his injuries, but blaming the summit and seeking restitution is waaay out of line. he made a choice with significant risk, and he needs to deal with the consequences. this dude and each jury member should be ashamed of themselves.
 
Well, that's it. The beginning of the end. It's so easy just to not build a terrain park.
 
So you would sue the car manufacturer for making a car that can go above the speed limit when you lose control while speeding?
 
...but to give you a more straight answer, yes. paralyed people need the money to survive for the most part. car manufacturers will make all that money back in a matter of months and they are no worse for the wear.
 
it's not about being oversimplified -- it's about legal precedent, which is the primary reason this particular case is so important to the future of skiing (especially man made parks.) once upon a time, someone did sue a car manufacturer for an accident that was their own fault and the auto industry shut them down. nice work jury. now no one can try that bullshit with hopes of winning. then remember when some bitch was awarded a million bucks because her mcdonalds coffee burned her? what the fuck, coffee is hot, right? shitty work jury. now there are caution disclaimers all over mcdonalds coffee dispensers. well, there were already disclaimers on lift passes, tickets and terrain parks. point is -- jury's are unpredictable and in the case of skiing, they are typically ignorant. now whenever someone crashes in a park and gets hurt they can use this case to their advantage. bullshit!
 
yes? you are wrong, and you are what is wrong with our legal system. 'i need it. you have it. give it to me.' this makes me kinda sad and kinda angry.
 
Even if the car manufacturer can eat those costs without a problem it definitely doesn't mean it their responsibility to do so.
 
the problem with what your saying is the terrain park is manmade, vs all your examples are natural. Mountains need to realize how serious having a park is (design, maintenance, snow conditions) and make things properly, it would be better for us because we would have more consistent features, and would help prevent cases like this where the skier is at fault, but they found a loophole so they can sue.
 
cause there is a chance that lawyer is being a deauche and also a chance that the park was unsafe. there were a few weeks this year where park city could have easily been sued for terrain park neglegence.
 
granted your argument negates the ?s i posed about closing other areas of the mountain, and i agree that properly built and maintained jumps are a good thing for all of us. none of this changes the fact that skiing into a park is a choice. it is each riders responsibility to know the features and acquire the skills to handle them. even then, for the most skilled and knowledgeable, there is risk involved. again, it is each riders personal responsibility to deal with any possible consequences. whether you're skiing on man made features or not, when you show a liftie your pass or put a day ticket on your jacket, you assume ALL risks. this warning is reiterated when you ride past the park signs at the entrance to every park.

here's another element to the debate: what about kickers not sanctioned by the resort? where i ski we build shit all over the mountain. we sculpt natural hits, build in the trees, in the open, over fences, all over. sometimes patrol knocks them down, sometimes they don't. who's to blame now? you gonna sue me because i built it? all my buddies who helped? the resort? the patrol? no. YOU CAN'T SUE ANYONE IF YOU CHOSE TO HIT SOMETHING. this shouldn't be a question at all.
 
i didn't say it was right. but the thing is, this is not communism, this is a democracy, THINGS ARE NOT FAIR. Where does that ideal come from? tell me where you learned that things are fair. Do you think there is actually blind justice in our legal system? Do you think that the last two elections were fair? It makes me incredibly angry, you are misinterpreting my tone. I am not advocating for lawsuits like this, I'm giving you the other side that you fail to cognate. I wish with all my heart that things would be fair, but ish in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up first.

Did you see that JOI vid where that japaneese guy overshot? He dropped at least 40 feet and walked away. Last year my freind fell off the lift and dropped about 40 on to ice, he was seriously injured and nearly died twice in the hospital. but he's back this season and skiing and walking around. But then this guy at snowqualmie falls 37 and his life is ruined, is that fair? The post-modern world is way closer to a dystopia than a utopia.
 
besides, who are you to say that something is wrong or right? nobody has the right to say that, nobody. Things aren't black and white. it's not like one side is right and one side is wrong, it doesnt work like that.
 
bingo. its a two sided responsibility. the skier has to ski with in his means as well as look at features to see if he thinks its safe to do. secondly its the hills responsibility to make the features as safe as possible and to fix any problems that may occur(ie flat landings).
 
people at snoqualmie are always getting hurt. Rarely is it the mtns fault. In december i saw some gaper haul ass into the smallest table in the park, maybe 8 or 10 ft. Overshoot into the flat, landing on his head after doing half a backflip from being too backseat. He wasnt moving afterwards but i never went back to see what happened to him. that article pisses me off
 
It wasnt that dangerous a park at all. Snoqualmie consistently has the best park in WA. It also gets the most use out of all the parks in the state, combined.

That week where people got injured was a horrible week. We had no snow for two weeks, and it was bright, sunny, and cold. It was so god-damn icy up there. Conditions were horrible. Taking any of the jumps at my area was risky, just because of the consequences of overshooting or undershooting just a little bit onto the rock hard surface. But people kept hitting the jumps in the park, and I myself saw three people come down in a sled in just one day from the park.

Liability in this country is out of hand. The Terrain Park is an inherently dangerous place, and you take full responsibility of yourself and whatever harm may come when you enter it. If a feature looks dangerous, DONT HIT IT. Fuck, its this shit that makes me want to move to Europe.
 
i was there the week when peter died at central. I didn't know him, but he rolled into the jump with hellllla speed, got way backseat and landed on his head/neck in the flats. There was nothing wrong with the jump. It's snoqualmie signature style, pretty poppy with a short table. We don't have room for 50 or 60 ft landings. Literally their just isn't enough room or snow.

I don't really see that as snoqualmie's fault.

Yeah it sucks that this dude broke his back, but it was his fault. His argument was that the landing was too short. thats part of the game, is getting the speed right. A park jump isn't made for everyone to hit it at their own speed. You have to correctly judge the speed, thats part of the game.

I feel bad for the people that got hurt, but this guy's argument is fucking retarded. Snoqualmie parks are getting gay, along with other parks. No gaps onto anything, Jumps onto shit are hella small and right into the front of boxes. For skis this is whack because we need a little more time to olly without the tips catching. I hate olley'ing before I even get to the lip of a jump.

There is so much liability now that they can't make shit anymore. It all has to be ride on, and the jumps are getting less poppy every year. People complain about the pop, but I love boosting.

 
The problem is definetly the lack of personal responsibility. If everything that is built, (houses,cars,jumps,etc.) has to be safe for the consumer, than we will end up living in a land where they just sell pillows.

The other problem here is the health system. The fact that it will cost 23 million, or whatever, to live the rest of his life is rediculous. The overinflated cost of medical care forces people to sue. Doctors are not gods and should not be payed like them.

 
How was my car analogy too simplified?

It's the same concept. A manufacturer/company made a product, it was used improperly outside of the way it was supposed to be used. (excessive speed), and you were injured due to your own choice to exceed the proper speed of use.

As for fairness. Exactly, life isn't fair. Sometimes you fuck up, and you will be faced with horrible consequences of your own actions.

Just because the ski resort has money, doesn't mean they should foot the bill for your actions.

""There were 10 accidents with eight people taken off the slope in a toboggan" in the weeks before Salvini was hurt,"

8 people injured (as it doesn't specify their injuries) over a few weeks for a busy public terrain park is a small number anyways. This doesn't indicate an unsafe feature. It could just specify that too many inexperienced riders are not following the Terrain Park Users code.

So should we be closing a feature forever anytime ANYONE gets hurt, just because it is clearly "unsafe" and the resort is setting up things recklessly?
 
in terms of legal action, there are laws against speeding. there are no laws against speeding in the terrain park. i have already laid out my argument if you care to understand my point of view read the rest of my posts in this thread
 
wow. you're all over the place. this is not about communism or democracy or cheating in elections or crashing on a jump in sweden.

sorry to have misinterpreted your tone (it is nice to hear that you do not advocate lawsuits like this), and be sure that i am able to 'cognate' the concept of both sides in this argument. i am simply stating that one side is irresponsible and unacceptable.

of course i know life can be unfair. believe me i have experienced plenty of shit. it happens. we go on. does that mean we give up on justice and decency? no. as to who am i... if you can't decipher right from wrong in this instance, perhaps the question is, 'who are you?' every lift pass/ticket printed everywhere in this country clearly states the user is responsible for all risks. this is black and white. when you sit on someone's chair and ski the terrain they provide for you, you assume responsibility for whatever fate skiing throws your way. this is the only way the system survives. this is why my home mountain will not build a park. fear that someone taking advantage of them and a jury allowing it would put daily operations at risk. holding on to the hope that fair will prevail in our court systems will ensure all of us the right and ability to keep lift access skiing at a relatively reasonable price.
 
You would punch a quadriplegic?

I feel sorry for the guy, you have to, but fucking over the ski area isn't cool. Northwest resorts have had it hard in these last few years with the snow, and after a great snow year Snoqualmie gets hit with this... I'm surprised they haven't declared bankruptcy.
 
alright, so my opinion is that it sucks ass for everybody in the skiing world that this happened, but the way our system is set up, the resort was at fault.

but that's not to say that the guy should have sued. Now, the hill i'm calling home as of right now is Red Mountain, BC. it's terrain park is what I would call unsafe. infact, the last 4 days or so that the hill (and the park) was open there were multiple rocks on the knuckle of the jump, and yes someone did end up landing on one and hurting himself.

Now the situation was this - the park staff was aware that there were rocks in the landing and yet allowed people (including myself) to hit the jump anyways. the kid that hurt himself (broke his heal) was aware the rocks were there and yet chose to hit the jump anyways. Now, what my point is here is this: The kid who hurt himself is in a situation where the hill is liable for his injury. of all the knowledge and information you can squeaze out of anybody who was at the hill that week, the only piece that is important is the fact that the hill kept the jump open with rocks in the landing. So yea the kid was the one who hurt himself by conciously hitting a jump he knew had rocks on the landing, but it's the fact that the hill let him hit it is what makes the hill liable.

Now, I know who the kid is, and i really don't think he's about to go and sue the hill, but earlier in the day I told the group of them "hey, one of you should go land on one of the rocks in the landing and break your skis so the hill has to buy you new ones" - maybe I'm the one who should get sued.

 
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