New Jersey decision explains the reasoning why ski areas owe the highest degree of care to people riding chairlifts.
Posted: April 25, 2016 Filed under: New Jersey, Ski Area, Skiing / Snow Boarding | Tags: Chair Lift, Common Carrier, Great American Recreation, Highest Degree of Care, Loading Area, New Jersey, NJ, ski area Leave a commentChair lifts are to be operated under the common carrier standard of care by ski areas in New Jersey.
State: New Jersey
Plaintiff: Kathleen A. D’Amico and Allen N. D’Amico
Defendant: Great American Recreation, Inc.
Plaintiff Claims: negligent in its operation and supervision of the ski lift
Defendant Defenses:
Holding: for the plaintiff
Year: 1992
The facts don’t lend themselves to what you would normally think as a chairlift accident. However, the decision explains in easy detail why the court requires the operator of a chairlift to operate it at the highest degree of care for the riders.
The plaintiff was in line to ride the chairlift. When she was next to board, another skier, skied into the path of the chair. The intervening skier hit the chair the plaintiff was to ride making the chair swing and hitting the plaintiff. The plaintiff suffered injuries from being hit by the chair.
The plaintiff and her husband sued. Prior to trial, the plaintiff moved for a motion in limine determining the standard of care of a ski area to riders of a chairlift. This decision is the result of that motion.
Analysis: making sense of the law based on these facts.
The court looked at decisions from all the other states where the question had been answered. What is the duty of care owed by an operator of a chair lift to a passenger.
At the time of this decision, most other states that had looked into the issue had determined that the standard of care was that of a common carrier. A common carrier is required to exercise the highest degree of care to is passengers.
A passenger of a common carrier places himself in the care of that common carrier. A passenger is unable to use his own faculties in order to prevent or avoid accidents and is forced to rely on the common carrier to ensure that accidents are avoided. The carrier has this responsibility because they exercise control of the equipment used in the transportation of the passenger. Only the carrier can ensure that the equipment is in proper working order and is being operated correctly.
Just like a passenger on a train who has no opportunity to ensure that the locomotive is operating properly, a skier cannot determine whether a ski lift is operating properly. When skiers board a ski lift, they are entrusting their care in the hands of another. Once they have committed themselves to riding that chair up the mountain, they are powerless to control their own safety. The chair lifts the skier off the ground as she sits down. The chair is suspended off the ground at considerable distance. The skier has no ability to stop the cable from moving. Furthermore, a skier can’t exit the chair once it has begun its ascent. Because of the skier’s helplessness, ski lift operators should be held to the highest standard of care.
The defendant argued it was not a common carrier because it did not hold itself out to the public as a transportation carrier. Also, the transportation provided by the chairlift was incidental to the sport of skiing. However, the court did not buy that argument.
However, skiers come to ski areas to ski. If ski areas did not provide transportation up a mountain, it would be impossible for skiers to ski down the mountain. Transportation of skiers up the mountain is one of the primary functions of a ski area operator. It is the reason skiers purchase “lift tickets”.
The ski area also argued that the plaintiff was not on the lift when she was injured. However, the court did not agree with this argument either.
The fact that this plaintiff was not physically on the lift when she was injured does not help defendant. The duty of care of a common carrier includes providing a safe means of ingress and egress for its passengers.
The court summed up its analysis.
Based upon the applicable well-reasoned decisions from other jurisdictions and the analysis set forth above, this court holds that ski area operators are common carriers in the operation of ski lifts. It is, of course, within the power of the Legislature to follow the examples of New York and New Hampshire and amend existing law to exclude ski lift operators from common carrier liability. Great American Recreation will be held to the standard of care applicable to other types of common carriers in the operation of its Vernon Valley chairlift. This standard has been de-scribed as the highest possible care consistent with the nature of the undertaking involved.
So Now What?
There were still defenses available to the defendant ski area. The first is the intervening skier. The actions that lead to the injury of the plaintiff were not caused by the ski area but by a third party who intervened, was between the actions of the ski area and the injury to the plaintiff.
However, in New Jersey, from the moment a skier gets on the loading ramp until the skier leaves, the ski area is held to the highest degree of care to riders of its lifts, that of a common carrier.
Don’t know how this applies to lift lines?
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Author: Outdoor Recreation Insurance, Risk Management and Law
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By Recreation Law Rec-law@recreation-law.com James H. Moss
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