Idaho Supreme Court overturns earlier ruling in Sun Valley ski death case
Skiers ride the Mayday lift near the top of Bald Mountain, the highest point at Sun Valley Ski Resort in Idaho. (Getty Images)
The Idaho Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously overturned a controversial earlier decision that had sent alarm through the ski industry in Idaho and nationwide, holding instead that a lower court was right to dismiss a lawsuit from the widow of a skier who died after crashing into a snowmaking tower gun at Sun Valley.
However, the court, with just one justice dissenting, upheld its earlier ruling that departed from decades of precedent in Idaho in how the state’s Ski Area Liability Law should be interpreted with regard to the legal “standard of care.” That potentially opens the door to far more lawsuits over ski injuries in Idaho, rather than reducing ski area liability, as lawmakers who originally sponsored the 1979 law said they intended.
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