Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_05-cv-01127/USCOURTS-caed-2_05-cv-01127-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Personal Injury

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

DEIRDRE PRICE 

Plaintiff,

v.

GREG MOODY, 

Defendant. 

 No. Civ. 05-1127 DFL KJM

MEMORANDUM OF OPINION AND

ORDER

Plaintiff Deirdre Price (“Price”) brings this personal

injury action seeking damages for injuries suffered when

defendant Greg Moody (“Moody”) collided with her while skiing at

Alpine Meadows Ski Resort. Moody now moves to dismiss, arguing

that Price’s case is barred by the primary assumption of the risk

doctrine. For the reasons stated below, Moody’s motion is

GRANTED. 

I.

On February 11, 2005, Price was participating in a ski

clinic for ski instructors at Alpine Meadows Ski Resort. (Opp’n

at 1.) Price was one of five or six students in the class taught

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by Steven Evenson (“Evenson”). (Mot. at 2.) Evenson has 30

years of experience as a staff trainer and ski instructor. (Id.)

The collision occurred on Red Trail, an intermediate ski

run. (Opp’n at 2.) The ski traffic that day on Red Trail was

“moderate.” (Mot. at 3.) Just before the collision, Price was

skiing down Red Trail with the other class participants making

“S” turns at about 10-15 miles per hour. (Id.) 

Moody entered Red Trail from the skiers’ left side. (Id.) 

He skied across the trail and then gradually turned left to ski

down the fall line. (Id.) Moody first noticed Price when he

aligned himself with the fall line. (Id.) Price was

approximately 40 yards ahead of him, and he was approximately 75

yards from the collision site. (Id. at 2-3.) 

Moody asserts that when he began to ski down the fall line,

he saw Price skiing in a controlled turn pattern, and she

appeared to be a good skier. (Id. at 4.) Moody assumed that

Price would continue to ski in the same pattern, giving him about

15 feet of space to ski past her. (Id.) According to Moody, 

when he was about 10 feet from Price, she changed her pattern and

skied further to the right than she had before. (Id.) He was

unable to avoid the collision. (Id.) 

Price does not remember the collision or the events

surrounding the collision. (Id.) Evenson saw Moody about 30

feet from where the collision occurred, skiing at about 25-30

miles per hour. (Id.) At that time, Moody appeared to be on a

collision course with Price. (Id.) Moody collided with Price

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from her right rear side while she was making a right turn. 

(Opp’n at 4.) 

II.

Under the primary assumption of the risk doctrine, a sport

participant has no duty to protect a coparticipant from a

particular risk when the risk is “inherent in the sport.” Cheong

v. Antablin, 16 Cal.4th 1063, 1068 (1997). A risk is inherent if

it cannot be eliminated without “fundamentally altering the

nature of” or “chilling vigorous participation in” the sport. 

Knight v. Jewett, 3 Cal.4th 296, 317-19 (1992). The Knight court

recognized that “in the heat of an active sporting event . . . a

participant’s normal energetic conduct often includes

accidentally careless behavior.” Id. at 318. Therefore, a

participant is not liable “for ordinary careless conduct.” 

Cheong, 16 Cal.4th at 1068 (citing Knight, 3 Cal.4th at 318). 

However, participants still “have a duty to use due care not

to increase the risks to a participant over and above those

inherent in the sport.” Lackner v. North, 135 Cal.App.4th 1188,

1199 (2006) (citing Knight, 3 Cal.4th at 315-16). Thus, a

participant is liable “if [he] intentionally injures another 

. . . or engages in conduct that is so reckless as to be totally

outside the range of the ordinary activity involved in the

sport.” Id. (citing Knight, 3 Cal.4th at 320). 

Whether a duty exists in any particular fact setting is

resolved by the court as a matter of law even though the duty

determination inevitably rests on certain factual assumptions or

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findings about the particular activity or sport. See Knight, 3

Cal.4th at 305-06. 

In the skiing context, courts generally view collisions

between skiers as inherent risks of the sport such that injured

skiers cannot recover for collision-related injuries. Cheong, 16

Cal.4th at 1069-70; see also Lackner, 135 Cal.App.4th at 1199;

Connelly v. Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, 39 Cal.App.4th 8, 12

(1995); Freeman v. Hale, 30 Cal.App.4th 1388, 1395 (1994); Green

v. Sunday River Skiway Corp., 81 F.Supp.2d 122, 128 (D.Me. 1999);

Rowan v. Vail Holdings, Inc., 31 F.Supp.2d 889, 902 (D.Colo.

1998). Collisions that occur because one skier misjudges the

distance or speed, the skill or intention of the other skier, his

or her own ability to avoid a crash are all inherent risks of the

sport of skiing. To ask skiers to shoulder the burden of

avoiding all collisions would fundamentally alter the sport by

chilling vigorous participation. 

In Cheong, plaintiff and defendant were skiing together at

Alpine Meadows when defendant collided with plaintiff and injured

him. Defendant admitted that he “was skiing faster than [he] was

comfortable with, in that [he] felt [he] was skiing too fast for

existing conditions. [He] turned to [his] right in an effort to

slow down, regain control and stop. As [he] did so, [he]

collided” with the plaintiff. Cheong, 16 Cal.4th at 1066. The

trial court found that he “did not act so recklessly as to bring

him outside the bounds of the sports activity, and accordingly

the defense of primary assumption of the risk operate[d] to bar

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[plaintiff’s] action.” Id. at 1067. The California Supreme

Court affirmed. Id. at 1072. 

The Cheong court also held that local ordinances that

delineate certain duties of skiers, such as the Placer County

Skier’s Responsibility Code (the “Skier’s Code”), do not govern

tort liability between skiers. Id. at 1069. The Skier’s Code

provides that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any person to ski

faster than is safe and it shall be the duty of all skiers to ski

in a safe and reasonable manner, under sufficient control to be

able to stop or avoid other skiers or objects.” Placer Code §

12.134. It also provides that, “[s]kiers shall not overtake any

other skier except in such a manner as to avoid contact with the

overtaken skier, and shall grant the right of way to the

overtaken skier.” Id. § 12.135. The Skier’s Code might be

thought to impose duties beyond those found in the general law of

torts and negligence. Indeed, in her briefing plaintiff Price

relies heavily on the Skier’s Code in contending that Moody

violated the duties imposed on a skier who is overtaking another

skier. However, the court in Cheong held that the Skier’s Code

does not impose a higher duty on skiers than Knight. Id. The

Cheong court reasoned that the Skier’s Code is aspirational, not

a standard for litigation. The Skier’s Code provides no remedies

and authorizes no right of action. Cheong, 16 Cal.4th at 1069. 

Instead, it “expressly provides that a skier ‘shall assume and

accept the inherent risks of such activities insofar as the risks

are reasonably obvious, foreseeable or necessary to the

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activities.’” Id. (citing Placer Code § 12.132). The Skier’s

Code “defines these inherent risks to include ‘collision with

other skiers and a skier’s failure to ski within the skier’s own

ability.’” Id. (citing Placer Code § 12.131(a)). 

Although skiers have no duty to avoid inadvertent collisions

like those in Cheong, and the Skier’s Code is not determinative,

skiers do have a duty to avoid increasing the risk of collisions. 

Freeman, 30 Cal.App.4th at 1396. Intentional collisions are not

part of the sport of skiing. Nor are collisions that result from

some kind of extraordinary behavior, fairly described as

reckless, such as skiing under the influence or not looking in

the direction of travel. Thus, in Freeman, the defendant was

found liable for colliding with plaintiff when he had been

consuming alcohol before and while skiing. Id. The court found

that drinking is not an activity ordinarily involved in skiing,

and “the increased risks presented by the consumption of alcohol

are not inherent in the sport of skiing.” Id. 

Similarly, in Lackner, the court denied summary judgment to

a snowboarder who collided with a skier because the snowboarder:

(1) was racing extremely fast with high school teammates down an

unfamiliar, advanced run; (2) was preoccupied with looking back

at his teammates to check their relative positions; and, (3) hit

a skier who was stopped on a flat area used as a rest stop. 

Lackner, 135 Cal.App.4th at 1200-01. The court found that a

reasonable jury could conclude that, in these circumstances, the

collision was not inadvertent or a result of mere negligence. 

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Id. at 1201. Accord Mammoth Mountain Ski Area v. Graham, 135

Cal.App.4th 1367, 1374 (2006) (collision resulting from

defendant’s participation in a snowball fight while moving down

the slope was not inherent to the sport.) 

The facts here are not comparable to those cases finding a

sufficient allegation of reckless conduct to permit liability for

a collision between skiers. Price does not allege that Moody

intentionally sought to collide with her. She does not allege

that he was doing anything other than trying to get down the

slope quickly without making sufficient allowance for her. She

does not allege that he was racing, inebriated, throwing

snowballs, or skiing without looking where he was headed. 

Rather, she merely claims that Moody was a good skier, that he

was overtaking her and knew that she could not see him, that he

was skiing quickly (although not extremely so), that he badly

misjudged how she was skiing, and that it was his responsibility

as the overtaking skier to avoid a collision. This does not

amount to the kind of reckless behavior that is outside the

normal risks of skiing with other skiers who cause collisions

through misjudgments or lack of care. 

Price’s brief relies heavily on the Skier’s Code and

Evenson’s opinion to argue that collisions are not inherent to

skiing and that Moody had a duty to avoid colliding with Price. 

Evenson gives the opinion that “Moody’s conduct was completely

outside of what is expected of skiers who are attempting to

comply with the basic fundamental safety rules.” (Opp’n at 5.) 

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He suggests that a skier trying to follow the rules on overtaking

a slower skier would have behaved differently by altering course

and slowing down. Yet even with Evenson’s carefully worded

opinion, the factual allegations do not add up to the kind of

extraordinary conduct that is required before a collision due to

misjudgment of speed, distance, circumstances, and the intention

of the other skier will be deemed “so reckless as to be totally

outside the range of the ordinary activity involved in the

sport.” Lackner, 135 Cal.App.4th at 1199 (citing Knight, 3

Cal.4th at 315-16). Evenson’s opinion, at best, could lead a

reasonable jury to infer that Moody was negligent because

inattentive or over confident. But in the context of a sport

based on the thrill of speed and the tug of war between the skier

and gravity, on a slick, uneven surface, liability does not

follow from errors of judgment and negligent failure to follow

safety rules like those encompassed in the Skier’s Code. Cheong,

16 Cal.4th at 1069.

Because Price has not introduced sufficient facts to show

that Moody’s conduct was outside the scope of the inherent risks

of skiing, the primary assumption of the risk doctrine bars

Price’s claim. 

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 III.

For the reasons stated above, the court GRANTS summary

judgment in favor of defendant Moody. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: 26 June 2006

DAVID F. LEVI

United States District Judge

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