Court Opinion

ID: 9631136
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:29:54.769813+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:28:29.217655
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
Justice Johnson opens his opinion by stating the three primary issues and the holdings which he would make if commanding a majority who adhere to his interpretation of The Act (I.C. §§ 6-1101 through 6-1109). Pairing the issues with the proposed holdings, I will point out my most cogent reasons for being unable to join the proposed opinion. Where appropriate I will rephrase the issues to better suit my understanding of the factual circumstances.
PART I.
ISSUE NO. 1. Whether Sun Valley Company may be liable for personal inju*359ries to a skier who was run into by another skier and knocked into a Company sign standard with such force that he suffered serious permanent injury. The holding proposed for Issue No. 1:
1. Under the Act a ski area operator is not liable for the improper placement of a sign erected to eliminate, alter, control or lessen the inherent risks in skiing or for the improper design, construction or padding of a signpost that supported the sign.
Discussion: It should be enough that I fully agree with Justice McDevitt’s view that, “The injuries sustained here were severe. The lack of planning, foresight, minimum caution, or attempt to minimize possible injury exhibited by Sun Valley Company in the design, construction and placement of the signpost causing those injuries is apparent.” However, I deem it necessary to expand upon Justice McDevitt’s views in order to fully express the sense of outrage which surfaces upon ascertaining the happening of an “accident” which was not accidental, considering the actions of the primary actor, “X” whose identity has been shielded by an employee of Sun Valley Company, and the severity of the injuries which appear to be 100 percent attributable to the solid and poorly padded sign standard which was unnecessarily positioned in a place of apparent peril to amateur skiers and almost deadly peril to an experienced skier who has the misfortune to be run into by a hot-dog skier run amuck.
Among the duties of operators enumerated in I.C. § 6-1103 is I.C. § 6-1103(3), to mark conspicuously, presumably by visible sign as stated in preceding duty number (2), the top or entrance to each slope or trail or area, with an appropriate symbol for the relative degree of difficulty. Idaho Code § 6-1107 makes the operator specifically liable for damages “caused by its failure to follow the duties set forth in § 6-1103 ... where the violation of duty is causally related to the loss or damage suffered.”
It does not require years and years of experience in driving motor vehicles to understand that reasonable prudence has guided the location of standards supporting both illuminating lights and traffic lights; such standards simply are not placed smack-dab in the middle of well-travelled thoroughfares. Rather the placement is well off of such thoroughfares. By the use of arms as long as necessary the signs are seen hanging well out over the thoroughfares, and the standard supporting the signs or signals presents no hazard.
No reason has been made to appear why the signpost standard here involved was not set well back and away from the area which was open to skiers. It is necessarily to be inferred that the Company recognized the hazard, but, for whatever reasons, chose to pad the standard as against relocating it in the woods, or at least off a main intersection at the top of three different slopes available for the Company’s paying customers.1
Although I.C. § 6-1106 — Duties of skiers, purports to impose upon skiers an assumption of the risk of injury caused by, inter alia, lift towers and components thereof, utility poles, and snow-making and snow-grooming equipment, a utility pole is a utility pole, concerning which “The Act” places no duty on the skier, and so far as has been learned, there are no utility poles on the ski slopes, and perhaps none in the area.
In this case our concern is with a sign standard which any reasonably prudent operator would have located so that it created no hazard. As far as is known on a record which is sparse because the issues were “tried” below in summary judgment proceedings, as compared to a record which would be developed at a trial, an off-track sign standard would have incurred no great expense, and the presence of the one at issue was not a risk by the legislature declared to be inherent to the recreational sport of skiing. To that extent I am in agreement with Justice Boyle’s view that the risks inherent in skiing would be those *360exact same risks which a skier subjects himself to when he embarks on a ski venture onto the public domain or private lands “open” to recreational trespassing. Obviously skiers using Sun Valley Company’s facility are paying for the luxury of riding to the top, of knowing that the entire area is being policed by ski patrols, and for the quid pro quo they have the Company’s implied obligation, plus the statutory obligation, to not negligently cause injury to their patrons. Northcutt was injured while enjoying the Company’s facility, and clearly he has a right to have a jury assess how much of his damages should be assessed to the Company, if it be that the standard supporting the trail marker sign was not prudently located and is so found by the jury. The holding which I propose:
1. Under the Act a ski area operator may be held liable for the dangerous placement of a sign standard which the operator was legislatively required to erect, a jury question, and here improperly resolved in summary judgment proceedings.
PART II.
ISSUE NO. 2. Should a ski area operator have any liability by reason of its agent or employee releasing an unidentified skier who ran into a skier, Northcutt, knocking the latter with great force into a sign standard, by reason of which the innocent skier, Northcutt, suffered great injury?
DISCUSSION: First, it is important to keep in mind that the particular collision between the two skiers here involved, while it was a precipitating cause of Northcutt being knocked with great force into a sign standard which obviously should not have been there, was not by any person declared to be attributable to Northcutt. He was as much run into as the 60 or 80-year old lady walking across Fairview Avenue in Boise, or Blue Lakes Boulevard in Twin Falls, in the crosswalk, going with the light and doing nothing which partakes of negligence. On the record before us, the skier who bombed into Northcutt, known now only as “X,” would be amenable to a negligence action against him with or without the provisions of I.C. § 6-1106, which although captioned “Duties of skiers,” is artfully worded so as to purport to wholly exonerate operators. It provides that “[t]he responsibility for collisions by any skier while actually skiing, with any person, shall be solely that of the individual or individuals involved in such collision and not that of the ski area operator.” This sentence standing alone is open to serious challenge because of its location (like the sign standard) in the wrong place, but it is somewhat savingly modified by the provisions of I.C. § 6-1107 which do deal with the question of an operator’s liability. One of the more understandable provisions of “the Act,” it would deprive Northcutt of any claim against the operator if, and only if, Northcutt at the time of the collision was “acting in a manner which may cause or contribute to the injury of anyone.” I.C. § 6-1106. As it appears in the record before us, Northcutt was an innocent victim when “X” ran into him, and was guilty of no violation within the contemplation of I.C. § 6-1107. Northcutt, in all probability, was desirous of naming “X” as a defendant in his action for the injuries and damages which he suffered. There is only one reason why he has not done so and cannot do so. That is because of the irresponsible behavior of a Company employee in releasing “X” without obtaining the personal identification of “X,” to wit, name and address as required by I.C. § 6-1106. Compounding this clear violation of duty, the culprit, “X,” when he first refused to identify himself, had been subjected to the equivalent of a citizen’s arrest by an on-the-scene skier who told “X” that should he attempt to leave without furnishing personal identification he, “X,” would be forcibly detained. “X” apparently respected the admonition, and did remain. The ski patrol arrived, was fully advised of the circumstances, and for unknown reasons directed the release of “X,” who quickly left the scene of the accident, taking with him the secret of his identity. In that manner Northcutt was deprived of any opportunity to seek redress from “X.” The holding which I propose:
*3612. An operator is liable for the negligent acts of his agents or employees. A ski patroller has an obligation to know the statutory responsibilities which “the Act” places on ski area operators, one of which is his employer, and, whatever may be the independent grounds of an operator’s liability to an innocent skier, where the operator’s employee has deprived an innocent skier of his chance to hail into court the culprit who ran into him, it is only just that the operator be made to bear the liability for damages which would have been assessed against “X,” except for the ski patrol’s violation of duty, whether it be a negligent or a wilful violation.
PART III.
As to the constitutional question, I see no reason to address it because there clearly exists in Northcutt a right to have a jury determine the issues of the Company’s liability, both as to the dangerous placement of the sign standard, and on application of the doctrine of respondeat superior.
PART IV.
Despite Justice Johnson’s assertion to the contrary, his is not “the only interpretation we can give to I.C. § 6-1103(10) that is consistent with the purpose of the Act and that gives meaning to all of the provisions of the Act.” There is, in fact, an interpretation which is consistent with common sense, general rules of statutory construction, and legislative intent.
Idaho Code § 6-1103(10) reads:
6-1103. Duties of ski area operators with respect to ski areas. — Every ski area operator shall have the following duties with respect to their operation of a skiing area:
(10) Not to intentionally or negligently cause injury to any person; ...
An exception which should have been separately stated, and perhaps in a section of its own — is then tagged on to the duty clearly delineated in (10). It reads:
provided, that except for the duties of the operator set forth in subsections (1) through (9) of this section and in section 6-1104, Idaho Code, the operator shall have no duty to eliminate, alter, control or lessen the risks inherent in the sport of skiing, which risks include but are not limited to those described in section 6-1106, Idaho Code; and, that no activities undertaken by the operator in an attempt to eliminate, alter, control or lessen such risks, shall be deemed to impose on the operator any duty to accomplish such activities to any standard of care.
I.C. § 6-1103(10) (emphasis added). Justice Johnson, according to my reading, interprets this section to say that while I.C. §§ 6-1103(1) through (9) do establish duties the operator of a ski area must fulfill, subsection (10) of I.C. § 6-1103 relieves the operator of the obligation to perform those duties with any standard of care. While the unfortunately poor drafting of the statute may have lead to this “tortured” interpretation, it is not even a plausible interpretation, much less the only interpretation. A far more rational interpretation would be as follows: The legislature set forth in subsections (1) through (9) certain duties which an operator must perform in order to provide skiers with a minimum level of safety which public policy demands. Those duties, as with any other legally imposed duty, must be performed in a non-negligent manner. I.C. § 6-1103(10). Then, in subsection (10), the legislature specified that, except for those nine previously enumerated duties, an operator does not have any duty to attempt to eliminate, lessen, etc., the inherent risks of skiing, and, if the operator does undertake to eliminate, lessen, etc., those risks in some way other than is enumerated in subsections (1) through (9), that additional remedial measure need not be undertaken with any standard of care.
This interpretation has numerous advantages that Justice Johnson’s interpretation lacks. First, it more fully gives effect to the whole Act, by recognizing that the legislature “define[d] those areas of responsibility and affirmative acts for which ski area operators shall be liable for loss, damage, or injury,” I.C. § 6-1101 (emphasis *362added), in subsections (1) through (9) of I.C. § 6-1103 and in I.C. § 6-1104.
Second, the interpretation outlined above gives a meaning to the legislature’s actions which is much more compatible with common sense than the interpretation put forward by Justice Johnson. The legislature clearly did not intend to give ski area operators free license to do whatever they choose on the slopes without any regard for the safety of skiers. Rather, the legislators were attempting to balance the interests of skiers in safe recreation with the inability of operators to eliminate all risks of skiing and still remain a profitable industry. Justice Johnson’s interpretation of the Act essentially eliminates the skiers’ half of that equation. The interpretation set forth in this opinion gives the legislature far more credit for having performed that balancing in an equitable manner.
Third, my interpretation of the statute is consistent with accepted principles of both statutory construction and tort law, while Justice Johnson’s is not. When construing a statute, “[w]here there is an express exception, it comprises the only limitation on the operation of the statute and no other exceptions will be implied. An enumeration of exceptions from the operation of a statute indicates that [the statute] should apply to all cases not specifically enumerated [in the exception].” Sutherland, Statutes and Statutory Construction § 47.11, at 145 (1984). Thus, only those duties enumerated in subsections (1) through (9) of I.C. § 6-1103 and I.C. § 6-1104 are excepted from the no standard of care provision of I.C. § 6-1103(10). Otherwise put, §§ (1) through (9) are the affirmative actions requirement in the statement of purpose. A statutory exception should not be read so that it excepts nothing from the operation of the statute. Erspamer Adv. Co. v. Dept. of Labor, 214 Neb. 68, 333 N.W.2d 646 (1983). Yet Justice Johnson’s opinion would read I.C. § 6-1103(10)’s exception in just that way, i.e., that the “except for” clause of subsection (10) in actuality excepts nothing.
Ordinary principles of tort law also militate against Justice Johnson’s approach to statutory interpretation.
‘[D]uty’ is a question of whether the defendant is under any obligation for the benefit of the particular plaintiff; and in negligence causes, the duty is always the same — to conform to the legal standard of reasonable conduct in the light of the apparent risk. What the defendant must do, or must not do, is a question of the standard of conduct required to satisfy that duty. The distinction is one of convenience only, and it must be remembered that the two are correlative, and one cannot exist without the other.
Keeton, Prosser and Keeton on Torts 356 (5th Ed.1984). This understanding of the inter-relationship of duty and standard of care is almost axiomatic. Justice Johnson’s reading of I.C. § 6-1103(10) does great violence to this long-standing principle. The interpretation of I.C. § 6-1103(10) proffered herein preserves the principle, recognizing that the legislature specifically stated that if the operator has no duty to do an act, and if the operator nevertheless does choose to do that act, the doing so cannot be converted into a duty by attaching some standard of care to its performance.
The impact of these differing interpretations is dramatically illustrated by Christopher Northcutt’s case. Northcutt was seriously injured when he collided with a sign standard which the operator of Sun Valley ski resort had posted on the slope. According to Justice Johnson, the operator had a duty to erect such a sign, but no standard of care attached to the manner in which the operator performed that duty. According to the theory advanced in this opinion, the operator had a duty to erect the sign supporting it with something, and locating it somewhere, and that duty is inseparable from the ordinary standard of care which attaches to any legal duty. It is up to a jury to determine whether the operator’s conduct met that standard of care, and if it did not, whether that failure was a proximate cause of Northcutt’s injuries.

. An expert testified that break-away poles supporting the sign would also have been preferable to the solid post which the Company utilized to support its sign in question.