April 10, 2007
Former Skier Sues the Summit and Wins $14 Million
Well, so much for the ol' "jury of your peers" principle, because we're pretty sure if any skiers, snowboarders, or general outdoor sports people were on the jury at this trial, they would not have awarded Kenny Salvini $31 million because he crashed off a jump at Snoqualmie. That's the amount of the original award from the jury, yet somehow the judge decided that $17 million was the amount relevant to Salvini's role in the whole situation, and adjusted the final amount down to $14 million. Is that how ski resorts will operate? A skier or snowboarder signs a waiver when they buy a ticket that they accept the risks, but then when something happens they get to only accept half of the risks? What if Salvini had hit a tree instead, would the lawyers have argued that the trees weren't thinned enough, and so Salvini didn't have a fighting chance? Or, in the words of an acquaintance of ours who is a snowboarding instructor:
Yeah, it's horrible that the guy got hurt, but did the ski area make him hit the jump? It's a bunch of BS in my opinion. If you decide to huck yourself off something, own up to the fact that you might get hurt. I've seen numerous poorly shaped jumps and said I'm passing on this one. It's more about riding with in your own abilities and judging for yourself whether something looks doable or not.
A previous California lawsuit in 2002 awarded the defendant, paralyzed from the waist down after crashing on a jump, over $9 million. In that case as well as this one, the prosecuting lawyer argued that the jump was not well built, that there were problems with it. What no-one involved seemed to understand is that there is no perfect jump--even jumps (either on snow or dirt) built to the most stringent of specifications cannot account for how a person approaches it. Too fast and you skip the transition entirely, too slow and you could land on the edge of the jump; either one can have unpleasant and dangerous results. A person has to know their own limits and if they plan to hit a jump that will send them "37 feet in the air" (the words of the attorney) then it is their responsibility to look at the jump and decide if they are capable of safely hitting it, including how it is built. If not, they need to pass by. A key element of the prosecution's case appears to be that others were hurt on the same jump, and yet as far as we know, none of them have sued.
Salvini's situation is tragic (please do not mistake criticism of his decision to sue with a lack of empathy), but what is particularly sad in our mind is that an event which should prompt conversations regarding personal choice, responsibility for our actions, and the nature of health care in our country (Salvini's lifetime health care costs are projected to be at least $23 million) could instead turn into a witch-hunt against the outdoors industry. Ski resorts are not generally bottomless money troughs--in recent years some have barely managed to scrape by. Ticket prices will continue to rise in order to cover for future scenarios like this, while landowners and terrain parks will be even more gun shy about building jumps and other features that people increasingly want. America: we pay to play, and then make someone else pay when it stops being fun.
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This guy wrote in earlier this week:
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A properly designed and positioned ski jump will have a sloped landing area, transfering the downward energy of the skier into forward momentum. The jump on which Mr. Salvini was injured landed on flat compact snow and ice. A sponsored snowboarder had broken his back on the same jump the week before Mr. Salvini's accident and notified the resort that the jump was unsafe, yet they did nothing.
The ski resort's $30 million dollar policy will pay for this verdict, and perhaps next year this resort (and the others insured by AIG) will pay a little more attention to where and how their jumps are set up. If this verdict prevents another young man from spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair, I think that's a good thing.
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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."
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Yes, all that info was in the article. I know they are claiming the jump wasn't well built. Take it from someone who actually jumps off things, on either skis or a bike: I look at everything before I jump off it. I feel it is my responsibility as a person who wants to do something like that to take the situation into my own hands. I can look at something and say "Wow, that's a short and flat landing. I'm going to pass on this one." I'm sorry, but people simply have to take their own lives into their own hands when it comes to this stuff. If you want to jump things, learn to visually assess jumps and how to understand the ramifications of how something is built. Often, I won't necessarily go off something unless I can watch someone else hit it first. I like to find someone I know who has done it, and watch them and/or follow them off it.
If anyone knows who the sponsored snowboarder was that broke their back on that same jump, I would really like to know who that was. Just because someone is sponsored isn't a guarantee that they approached this thing any more sensibly than anyone else--no offense to sponsored athletes out there, I'd just like more info on that scenario.
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"a discussion regarding personal choice, responsibility for our actions, and the nature of health care in our country"
Here's a discussion: why do people who jump off jumps and shit pay the same amount for health care as people like me who don't do anything more dangerous than sometimes lean back too far in our Eames chair?
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Gee Seth, what took you so long? I think last time you made this comment it was your own minimal risk of falling off the bleachers at a high school basketball game, correct?
You drive a car, right? I'd wager your car insurance is a hell of a lot more expensive than your health insurance (which I'm pretty sure your company subsidizes a huge chunk of) so you'd be better of pissing on drunk drivers and texting while on the freeway types than skiers or snowboarders. That's the problem I'm talking about: the media throws up a headline about some skier being paralyzed and winning $14MM from the resort, when a hell of a lot more people are gravely injured just getting to work every day. These events are few and far between, and they are rare. Those of us who want to undertake these activities should be just as free and encouraged to do so as Americans are to get into their cars and hurl themselves down the freeways day in and day out. If one day you slam into the back of someone's car because you didn't slow down fast enough, you sure as hell aren't going to sue them for worrying how fast you were going behind them.
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Courtney is absolutely right that you would not sue the person you rear-ended on the freeway. Although if the car you were driving had been improperly designed so that it burst into flames every time it got involved in a minor fender bender, you might sue the car company.
And isn't this what Salvini has done? The jury found that he was partly at fault, as they most likely would if I rear-ended another car. But the jury also found that the resort was partially at fault and that the jump was unreasonably dangerous, as I would expect them to find with an unreasonably dangerous car. (The Pinto comes to mind here.) I agree with Courtney that we all assume the risks of our own behavior, but that doesn't give vehicle manufacturers and resort operators carte blanche to ignore safety.
Besides, I think we should be careful about second guessing a jury verdict; afterall, it was the jury in this case that was presented with all of the evidence from both sides, not the bloggers.
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Yeah - let's drive a Pinto off a cliff and sue Ford.
While tragic, this guy skied too fast and beyond his ability. He hit a jump at such a speed to throw him a ridiculous 37 feet in the air. I happen to know an eyewitness - had he hit the jump at half the speed he was traveling, we wouldn't be reading this. The outcome of this case is ridiculous.
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It's true the skier was going to fast. But if the jump had a longer landing, the chance of any skier overshooting the landing would be diminished. No jump is guranteed safe. But Kenny was not the first skier to overshoot and land on the flats. The folks at Snoqualmie Pass knew it was a problem but did not address it. Because the skier was going too fast (and did not check out the jump first etc) he was held more than 50% responsible for the accident. But people paying to ski at the pass have the right to expect that accidents are being examined and problem areas are being looked at. And they may also have an expectation that when a huge human-made structure is constructed on the side of the mountain, it is done so with some engineering and/or understanding of the physics behind ski jumps.
There were 31 witnesses in this case and a great deal of evidence was presented. Most of it was not contained in the brief press coverage of the event. However as an outdoor lover and a skier who happened to be assigned to be a juror in this trial, after giving up a month of my life to sit in a courtroom and truly examine the evidence and hear all sides, I voted that both the skier and the operators of Snoqualmie Pass had some responsiblity for this accident. It was not an easy case to listen to and it was not an easy decision to make. This case was far more complex than what you read in the paper.
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Carrie:
No fair: You're basing your comments on ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE of the case, and thus have an ability to reach a reasoned, nuanced opinion that actually has some validity.
Sorry, you don't belong in this thread.
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...OUCH!
I'm newer to Snowboarding, and I haven't hit any real jumps just yet or rails. People should know that you NEED to, "look before you leap". Ride by the jumps, rails, EVERYTHING before you hit it. Run your hand over it,.. is it smooth? Check the landings, etc. BEFORE you try it. SO what if it takes longer to do it!
BE SAFE, be careful, because YOU cannot be replaced. PERIOD.
You are ultimately responsible for YOU.
I feel horrible for this person, and I hope that in some way he and his Family can find some hope and encouragement during this difficult time.