Large verdicts and shifts in liability law have raised concerns about insurance availability for ski resorts. (Credit: Jag_cz/Adobe Stock)
A recent multi-million verdict against Vail Resorts highlights the limits of liability waivers for ski resorts — and could impact insurance availability and affordability.
A Broomfield County jury in Colorado awarded $21 million to Annie Miller, an Oklahoma woman who was paralyzed after falling off a ski lift at Crested Butte Mountain Resort in 2022.
Vail Resorts, which owns the ski area, will only have to pay $12.4 million of that verdict because Miller and her family signed a liability waiver when they purchased their ski passes. The jury found that Vail Resorts was 75% at fault, and the Millers were 25% at fault, so the dollar amount owed was reduced accordingly.
Miller, who was 16 at the time of the accident, was on the second day of a ski trip with her church youth group when she started to board the Paradise Express lift with her father. She wasn’t fully seated when the chair rose into the air. Her father tried to hold her and yelled to the lift operator to stop the lift. However, Miller fell 30 feet onto hard-packed snow and shattered her C-7 vertebrae. The accident left the teen with severe injuries, and she will not likely walk again.
The family sued the ski area and Vail Resorts for violations of duty of care, negligence and gross negligence.
Vail Resorts initially argued that it was immune to the negligence claims, citing the Colorado Ski Safety Act. The act requires skiers to know and follow the safety rules of the resort, including how to load onto a chairlift properly. It also caps legal awards at $200,000. What's more, Vail Resorts cited the liability waiver signed by the Miller family when they purchased passes.
Resorts have used this argument in lawsuits for many decades, and few courts have sided with skiers. Initially, a district court dismissed Miller’s claims of duty of care and negligence due to the signed liability waiver.
The Miller family appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court, and in May 2024, it ruled that the standard liability agreements used when lift tickets are sold don’t shield ski areas from all negligence claims. Ski resorts aren’t protected if they violate state laws and regulations, like the Colorado Ski Safety Act and the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Practice Act, which applies to lifts and lift operators.
That decision sent the Miller family’s case back to the Broomfield County District Court. The jury did not agree with the suit’s claim of gross negligence, but it did find that the ski area’s lift attendants violated safety standards.
Tonya Riley, director of marketing and communications for the National Ski Areas Association, said recent cases with large verdicts and shifts in liability law raise concerns about insurance availability and affordability across the industry, especially for smaller and independent ski areas.
“We’ve already seen the impact when one major insurer withdrew from Oregon this year, citing unsustainable costs after a court decision nullified liability waivers that the legislature has failed to remedy,” she said in an interview with PropertyCasualty360.com. “These developments underscore how legal changes can directly affect recreational providers, the overall costs of the sport and the guest experience.”
She said chairlift safety education is important for both resorts and riders.
“Ski areas nationwide remain deeply committed to chairlift safety,” she said. “NSAA, together with state and regional associations and many individual ski areas, has developed a range of educational tools and videos available at skisafety.us, helping riders better understand lift procedures. These ongoing efforts reflect the industry’s shared priority of supporting safety and providing an enjoyable experience for every guest on the mountain.”
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