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Friday, February 17, 2012
By Michael Nichols
Categories: Wendy M. Schiller-Nichols
Being an expert skier myself, I figured that if anyone can teach our 2 year old daughter to ski, it should be me. Then, after my first lesson with her and an hour of slouching over to hold her upright, I thought … maybe it would be best to pay an instructor to teach her. Then, I read this case. In this unpublished opinion, Plaintiff, a 13 year old boy, was taking snowboarding lessons at a Michigan ski resort. The instructor at one point, stopped and turned to the boy and signaled to him to cross the hill. The boy was about halfway across when a downhill skier crashed into him, fracturing the boy’s leg. The boy sued the ski instructor for the accident alleging that instructor was liable in general negligence for failing to use ordinary care in conducting himself as a snowboard instruction and that Mt. Holly Resort was liable under a theory of vicarious liability. Mt. Holly was dismissed from the lawsuit because it was discovered that the snowboard school was not operated or run by the resort. The instructor moved to dismiss arguing he owed the boy no duty and that the injury was caused by the downhill skier who was racing down the hill recklessly. The instructor argued that the injury had nothing to do with the instructor’s actions but, instead, was the fault of the reckless downhill skier. The Court held that the instructor owed no duty to the boy and the case was dismissed. The Court of Appeals agreed and reasoned that the instructor looked to see if the hill was sufficiently clear for the boy to cross. The instructor judged it to be so and it was not until seconds before the impact that the instructor saw the downhill skier racing down the hill. Butts v Whitton. After reading the decision of this case, I figured, although a difficult, painstaking task, I will teach her how to ski.