http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...suit-1.4543585
That waiver you signed when buddy the guide asked if you understood it ... does it stand up in court ??
I have requested an opinion from legal
this should be interesting eh?
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...suit-1.4543585
That waiver you signed when buddy the guide asked if you understood it ... does it stand up in court ??
I have requested an opinion from legal
this should be interesting eh?
1) The waiver should hold up in courtQuote:
Originally Posted by XXX-er
2) This is not interesting especially in canuck-ville. the litigious pricks are in the USA. I didn't think ya'lld even let this stuff go to court?
3) Lawsuits are usually about who has the deeper pockets. The guides I've met in Canada, while they have a sustaining life, I would not consider them in the deep-pocket crowd (even the ones w/ more than one hut), let alone the ones you pick up in a bar or from word-of-mouth. CMH, et. al., sure, maybe they've settled out-of-court a few times?
4) Heh, my neighbor's a guide. I tell him I don't need a guide to kill myself :-)
It will be interesting to see how things play out. If they can show the guide was negligent and acted against best practices... maybe? Gonna be hard to prove.
thankfully, CDN courts seem to less likely to support this type of litigation. I am a firm believe that litigation is killing the action sports industry. .. I have had the unpleasant experience of watching unnecessary litigation between a widow and an individual who was a friend of the deceased... thankfully, no wrongdoing was found. Still created a significant distress amongst the community.
not interesting? If it set a new precedent that would look interesting to meQuote:
Originally Posted by Ermine
9 out 10 people buried... I don't know. on face value that is some poor group management, easy enough to armchair i guess, but if everyone is in the slid path it easy to assume someone fucked up.
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Doesn;t matter if there was negligence. Waiver's/Releases defeat negligence. Litigants can eat a BAG OF DICKS
More on waivers/releases and negligence http://www.leelau.net/sharonandlee/c...b-c-bikeparks/
Skiing references in there.
around the same time as that case, wasnt there was a case of mountain biker in ontario, who was successful? .. and did any of the skiing cases involve guides?
Its a total bumber for the individual's name in in the suit, regardless of how it plays. I hope they have insurance to protect themselves, even assuming they are not held responsible they will likely bear fiscal the burden of legal representation.
Yup _ i discuss the Ontario case in the link aboveQuote:
Originally Posted by cmcrawfo
EDIT _ whoops. Different article. I'm working on that case comment. Ontario case is Rural Municipality of Bruce and is an outlier
Waivers enable an operator to transfer responsibility for inherent risk to an informed individual, but they are not a blanket indemnification for gross negligence. The boundary between inherent risk and gross negligence as it applies to guided backcountry skiing will be the subject of this dispute. I’d be surprised if the guide’s conduct fell outside the scope of the comprehensive BLBC waiver, but I wasn’t there. I’ll be watching with interest.Quote:
Originally Posted by LeeLau
Hard to imagine that a bike park or ski hill waiver is the same as when you are guided.
at the hill, you are essentially self guiding. You get to make all the decisions and manage the risk. In the context of a professional guide, you are hiring that person to make the decisions for you. Professionals who are negligent are liable, regardless of how well informed of the risk the victims were. No?
This is a tough one.
On one hand, yes there was a major FUBAR in getting a whole party swept and buried.
On the other, snow and avalanche assessment are about as difficult as it gets.
I am not a fan of lawsuits but in this case the group management does sound a bit negligent. Unless the group disregarded what the guides instructed.
Much to my surprise BCcourts have dismissed a case ruling that waiver excused even gross negligence. It was a Blackcomb case involving an instructor. I'll dig it upQuote:
Originally Posted by kootenayskier
S here it is.
https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bcsc/do...ocompletePos=1
Not in BC. A properly executed waiver is insanely powerfulQuote:
Originally Posted by cmcrawfo
I think Rudi buried at least that many so it happens but the crux of this case is not about negligence ...Quote:
Originally Posted by cmcrawfo
its about the waiver
wasn't there at least one lawsuit from the big SME avalanche?
Just Frank Baumann's expert report. But none filed iircQuote:
Originally Posted by dunfree
If a dentist fucks up ur face- liableQuote:
Originally Posted by LeeLau
If a realestate agent fucks your transaction - liable
If a surgeon leaves a sponge inside you - liable.
If a professional guide fucks up their risk assessment / terrain choice - not liable.
Help me rationalize this.
There is no rationale. It's the law. Law does not equal rationale. In BC, its weighted heavily against those who voluntarily assume risks when participating in inherently risky sports.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmcrawfo
Anyone have any links to a case study or a technical analysis of the actual avalanche incident?
Whew, long article there LL. Found the Canadian guide page (@ bottom): http://www.acmg.ca/03public/guides/hireguide.aspQuote:
Originally Posted by LeeLau
(& assuming the international guides have liability coverage as well)
"If you are taking a course or being guided by an ACMG member, you will be requested to complete a liability waiver. This is a requirement set out by our insurance underwriter as well as by the land managers we deal with."
So, I guess the deep pockets would be the insurance company and you can bet they have a host of "enforced" liability waiver cases they'll present in court. Granted, sucks all the way around (all involved). Hopefully it's not interesting in that the liability waiver is not overturned (if in the USA, who TF knows how it would go?, they like us skiing parallel to each other, within ropes, riding chairs, eating at the café...). As discussed in other sites/threads, I hope everyone knows their life insurance policy probably will not pay out when bc skiing (unless you take out a special policy). All about $$$ & keeping us lined up in 2 x 2 formation.
Take home for me on this (as usual in avie terrain) is to spread out, GTF out of the way at the bottom, one-at-a-time (sigh) --use terrain features? The safety in numbers ingrained into us mammals isn't so great when touring.
Avalanche Canada has full report in their accident database.Quote:
Originally Posted by swissiphic
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Thanks. Gave it a read. It's a brief summary. Looking for more in depth analysis.Quote:
Originally Posted by PNWbrit
http://old.avalanche.ca/cac/library/...-database/view
No coroners report fyi. Heres the barebones AvCan report for interested partiesQuote:
Originally Posted by swissiphic
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...c65c1a7aeb.jpg
Here is the media contact if you want further info
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2016JAG0007-000322
I agree. However the case of a professional hired specifically to manage risk is different than the risk you assume when managing your self.Quote:
Originally Posted by LeeLau
Cases that don't speak to the negligence of an individual, but rather focus on the liability of an organization are not particularly relevant here. Organizational liability and the waiver has been well established.
The ski instructor that was found liable may be a more direct comparison here.
This could get interesting in our small community. I've heard about alot this incident as i know the deceased and some others. Curious is the case filed in bc or ab? Would that make a difference Lee?
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I know of no case where the ski instructor was found liable. In Braun vs Whistler the waiver/release defeated the case against WB and the instructorQuote:
Originally Posted by cmcrawfo
Filed in BC. It probably wouldn't make a differenceQuote:
Originally Posted by crashidy
Not a lot of a detail available, so all I can go off of is the obvious facts from the report, pics, and google earth: 2 guides exposed entire group to avalanche hazard at once on a 500m line instead of using safe zones and consequently got all of them caught, many of them injured, and one of them killed.
Seems like this lawsuit will be highly dependent on the details of Canadian law.
In the US, I understand that waivers don't excuse gross negligence.
In some European countries, these guides might be facing criminal prosecution (manslaughter) from my understanding of this incident. The way professional guiding responsibility falls is quite heavy in Europe.
Now I imagine there are a lot of missing critical details we may not learn for a long time with a legal case in progress.
IANAL
That about sums it up. There were several other fatalities with in a few days by snowmobilers in the same region.Quote:
Originally Posted by Summit
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A bit more info to build context.
CAA avy forecast for the day for the Purcells.
http://www.avalanche.ca/forecasts/ar...lls/2016-02-21
I checked successive avy forecasts and found it a bit odd the avalanche incident wasn't reported in the forecast's 'details' section which noted numerous other human trigger, controlled and natural avies over the past week.
I'm interested in learning more about the snow profile details and failure plane. Wonder if the slope was one of the isolated areas with surface hoar on the feb 10th crust.