Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Corp. v. Rohrman

2006 WY 156, 150 P.3d 167, 2006 Wyo. LEXIS 177, 2006 WL 3718182
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 19, 2006
DocketNo. 05-290
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 2006 WY 156 (Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Corp. v. Rohrman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Corp. v. Rohrman, 2006 WY 156, 150 P.3d 167, 2006 Wyo. LEXIS 177, 2006 WL 3718182 (Wyo. 2006).

Opinions

HILL, Justice.

[11] By notice entered on December 20, 2005, this Court agreed to answer questions certified to us in accordance with Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-13-106 (LexisNexis 2005) and W.R.A.P. 11, by the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming, the Honorable William F. Downes presiding. In our notice we designated Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) as the Appellant. Phillip Rohrman is the Appellee.

THE CERTIFIED QUESTION

[12] The question certified to us is this:

When faced with motions for summary judgment in which there are no genuine issues of material fact, how should a court differentiate, as a matter of law, between "inherent risks" as defined in Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-1-122(a)(1) and employed in § 1-1-128(a) and (b), and non-inherent risks in order to determine whether a recreational provider has a duty to eliminate, alter or control the risk at issue?

[¥8]) Our general answer to the question is that if such a motion is filed, the trial court must serutinize the facts brought forward by the parties with great care. If the court can say that, given that evidence, this is an "inherent risk" and reasonable minds cannot differ about that, then summary judgment is appropriate. If the risk is an inherent one, then the provider has no duty to eliminate, alter, or control it. On the other hand, if reasonable minds could differ as to whether or not the risk was one inherent to the recreational activity, then summary judgment is not appropriate and the answer to the question must be assigned to the jury (or other fact finder).

STATEMENT OF ALLEGED FACTS RELEVANT TO

THE QUESTION CERTIFIED

[T4] The federal district court set out these facts as relevant to the question posed:

This case arises out of a ski injury that Plaintiff, Phillip Rohrman, suffered on March 2, 2000 at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR). Mr. Rohrman is a resident of Colorado and [JHMR] is a Wyoming Corporation. The case comes to this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1382 diversity jurisdiction. At the time of his injury, Mr. Rohrman was 24 years old and, by his own definition, an experienced skier.... He attempted to jump a "table top" jump in the JHMR terrain park. He alleges that the jump was icier than he could have known from looking at it, and that because of the ice, he lost control and could not land the jump. He suffered several breaks in his left arm and injuries to his thoracic spine....
Two days before this accident, another young man, Adam Harshman, died of injuries sustained after taking off from the other side of the same jump. Plaintiff alleges that JHMR had a duty to close the jump or warn of the dangers because they were not inherent risks of the sport. Defendant JHMR asserts that losing control on a table top jump is a risk inherent in skiing terrain parks and therefore, JHMR owed Rohrman no duty.

[15] In addition to this brief sketch of the facts, the parties have designated approximately 500 pages of depositions and other record materials as an appendix to the briefs to aid us in the analysis of this case. However, we take note that we are not placed in the role of fact finder here. We perused the appendix materials with interest but we do not detail those facts here because they are not immediately pertinent to the question asked or the answer we give.

[169]*169DISCUSSION

[T6] We set out the pertinent provisions of the Wyoming Recreational Safety Act (RSA) for convenience of reference:

§ 1-1-122. Definitions.
(a) As used in this act:
(i) "Inherent risk" with regard to any sport or recreational opportunity means those dangers or conditions which are characteristic of, intrinsic to, or an integral part of any sport or recreational opportunity;
() "Provider" means any person or governmental entity which for profit or otherwise, offers or conducts a sport or recreational opportunity. This act does not apply to a cause of action based upon the design or manufacture of sport or recreational equipment or products or safety equipment used incidental to or required by the sport or recreational opportunity;
(ii) "Sport or recreational opportunity" means commonly understood sporting activities including baseball, softball, football, soccer, basketball, swimming, hockey, dude ranching, nordic or alpine skiing, mountain climbing, river floating, hunting, fishing, backcountry trips, horseback riding and any other equine activity, snowmobiling and similar recreational opportunities; ...
§ 1-1-123. Assumption of risk.
(a) Any person who takes part in any sport or recreational opportunity assumes the inherent risks in that sport or recreational opportunity, whether those risks are known or unknown, and is legally responsible for any and all damage, injury or death to himself or other persons or property that results from the inherent risks in that sport or recreational opportunity.
(b) A provider of any sport or reere-ational opportunity is not required to eliminate, alter or control the inherent risks within the particular sport or recreational opportunity.
(c) Actions based upon negligence of the provider wherein the damage, injury or death is not the result of an inherent risk of the sport or recreational opportunity shall be preserved pursuant to W.S. 1-1-109.

Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 1-1-122 and 1-1-1283 (LexisNexis 2005).

[¶ 7] We recently decided a case that - posed related issues, and we direct our readers' attention to it as background for this case. Muller v. Jackson Hole Mtn. Resort, 2006 WY 100, ¶ 14, 139 P.3d 1162, 1167 (Wyo.2006). In Muller we said:

Under Wyoming's statutory construct, which is much broader than that of Colorado, such items as those included in Colorado's statute may, as a matter of law, be inherent risks of the recreational activity of skiing (in such cases a trial court may grant a motion to dismiss or a motion for summary judgment based on the RSA). Other items included in the list, and others that are not listed, and including the use or operation of ski lifts may, as a matter of fact, be "inherent risks" although those questions must be decided by the fact finder based on the evidence presented. See generally James H. Chalat, Liability of Ski Area Operator for Skiing Accident, 45 Am.Jur. POF3d 115, 150-51, § 17 (Broad judicial interpretation of inherent danger ski statutes as primary assumption of risk) (1998 and Supp.2005); also see Catherine Hansen-Stamp, Recreational Injuries and Inherent Risks: Wyoming's Recreational Safety Act-An Update, 33 Land & Water L.Rev. 249 (1998); also see Halpern v. Wheeldon, 890 P.2d 562, 566 (head note [9] ) (Wyo.1995); Dunbar v. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, 392 F.3d 1145, 1148-58 (10th Cir.2004) (injuries suffered by skier in a terrain park that offered the most difficult skiing opportunities, which instant skier wished to avoid and asked a Resort employee for direction in order to avoid it, not an "inherent risk" as a matter of law but, rather, a question for the jury); and Cooperman v.

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2006 WY 156, 150 P.3d 167, 2006 Wyo. LEXIS 177, 2006 WL 3718182, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jackson-hole-mountain-resort-corp-v-rohrman-wyo-2006.