Case Title: Estate of Frant v. Haystack Group, Inc.

Citation: 162 Vt. 11, 641 A.2d 765

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1994-02-28T00:00:00Z

Document:
ESTATE_OF_FRANT_V_HAYSTACK_GROUP_INC.92-584; 162 Vt. 11; 641 A.2d 765

[Opinion Filed February 28, 1994]

[Motion for Reargument Denied May 3, 1994]

 NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P.
 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
 Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
 Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
 order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                                 No. 92-584


 Estate of Martin A. Frant,                   Supreme Court
 Roger Frant, Administrator
                                              On Appeal from
      v.                                      Windham Superior Court

 Haystack Group, Inc, et al.                  September Term, 1993



 Arthur J. O'Dea, J.

 J. Eric Anderson of Cantini, Anderson & Oakman, Manchester Center, Richard
    M. Howland, Amherst, Massachusetts, and Jean M. Fielding, Greenfield,
    Massachusetts, for plaintiffs-appellants

 David L. Cleary and Thomas P. Aicher of David L. Cleary Associates, Rutland,
    for defendants-appellees



 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.



      MORSE, J.   Martin Frant sued for injuries received when he skied into
 a wooden lift-corral post at defendant Haystack's ski area.(FN1) Haystack won
 summary judgment under Vermont's sports injury statute, which states that "a
 person who takes part in any sport accepts as a matter of law the dangers
 that inhere therein insofar as they are obvious and necessary."  12 V.S.A. {
 1037 (acceptance of inherent risks).  We hold the trial court misconstrued {
 1037 by concluding that, regardless of whether the ski area's use of the

 

 wooden posts was negligent, the statute prevented recovery as a matter of
 law because Frant accepted the "obvious and necessary" risk posed by the
 corral post.  Instead, whether the ski area's use of wooden corral posts was
 an "obvious and necessary" risk should have been a threshold question of
 fact decided by the jury.  If the answer was affirmative, { 1037 would have
 entitled the ski area to a verdict as a matter of law.  But if the answer
 was negative, then Frant's recovery should have been disallowed only if his
 negligence in encountering the risk posed by the corral post was greater
 than or equal to the ski area's negligence in creating that risk.  See 12
 V.S.A. { 1036 (comparative negligence).  We reverse and remand for trial.
      On a February day in 1987, ten-year-old Frant was skiing on the
 Haymaker Trail at Haystack Mountain, a trail he had already skied at least
 twice that day.  Frant described himself as an intermediate-to-advanced
 skier who could handle most of the trails at mountains he had previously
 skied.  The boy was injured when he skied into a lift corral, a holding
 area designed to funnel skiers into a row to board the lift.  He struck one
 of a series of wooden posts supporting the rope lines of the corral.  The
 unpadded post was four inches by four inches by eight feet tall and stood in
 frozen ground, having been installed before the ski season.  Frant admitted
 he was skiing "pretty fast" and that he had seen the post on his earlier
 runs.  In his words, he "messed up."
      Haystack moved for summary judgment on the basis that the wooden post
 was an "obvious and necessary" danger inherent in downhill skiing, and,
 under 12 V.S.A. { 1037, Frant had assumed the risk of this danger as a
 matter of law.  Frant opposed summary judgment by raising a disputed factual
 issue about whether the corral's unpadded wooden post construction, as

 

 opposed to the corral itself, was "necessary" within the meaning of 12
 V.S.A. { 1037.  Frant submitted the affidavit of a ski-area safety expert
 who stated that it was a common practice to pad corral posts in anticipation
 of skiers colliding with a post or pushing someone else into one.  The affi-
 davit further stated that there was "definitely a safer way of providing a
 [corral] line and support without using 4" x 4" posts," by using "forgivable
 [plastic] types."  The expert's opinion was basically that Frant's injury
 was foreseeable and resulted from "a well known avoidable hazard in the ski
 industry."  The trial court, nevertheless, held as a matter of law under 12
 V.S.A. { 1037 that "a wooden guide post at the corral leading to the chair
 lift is an obvious and necessary risk."
      This is our first opportunity to construe 12 V.S.A. { 1037.  In order
 to interpret this statute, we must determine its intent by analyzing not
 only its language, but also its purpose, effects and consequences.  See In
 re R.S. Audley, Inc., 151 Vt. 513, 517, 562 A.2d 1046, 1049 (1989).  The
 avowed purpose for the statute was extensively set out in { 1 of the Act
 (preamble):
           Since 1951, the law relating to liability of operators
         of ski areas in connection with downhill skiing injuries
         has been perceived to be governed by the doctrine of
         volenti non fit injuria as set forth in the case of
         Wright v. Mt. Mansfield Lift, Inc.,