Responses and counterreponses have been filed, and now it’s up to Broomfield District Judge C. Scott Crabtree to decide where Vail Resorts should defend itself from a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a teenager who died in an in-bounds avalanche in 2012.
Vail Resorts wants to move the case from Broomfield, where the company is headquartered, to Eagle County, where 13-year-old Taft Conlin was killed on Vail Mountain in January 2012 after an avalanche on a closed run he accessed from an open run.
The company filed a motion to change venues earlier this month arguing proximity to the ski area would be more convenient for witnesses and a jury visit to the site of the accident.
But the Conlin family wants the case to remain in Broomfield, where they filed a wrongful death lawsuit in 2012, arguing the resort company violated the state’s Ski Safety Act when it closed the Upper Prima Cornice run but not the run’s lower gate.
The case, which involves Conlin’s decision to hike from a lower run to the closed upper run and whether Vail knew skiers regularly hiked that route, would be the first jury trial involving a fatal in-bounds avalanche in Colorado history.
A previous judge delayed setting the case for trial as the Colorado Supreme Court considers an appeal in a similar case involving the death of Christopher Norris, who was killed in an in-bounds avalanche at the Winter Park ski area on the same day Conlin died. The state’s highest court in December agreed to hear the Norris family’s appeal of a lower court the ruled avalanches are an inherent risk of skiing and resorts were protected from lawsuits involving that risk by the Colorado Ski Safety Act.
Vail argued the case’s lack of a trial date, the departure of a retiring judge and the number of witnesses from Eagle County support transferring the trial.
In their response, the Conlin’s attorney
, Jim Heckbert, blasted Vail’s argument that Eagle County would be more convenient. Heckbert, in his motion filed Jan. 23, also argued that a jury view of the scene — perhaps in summer — could not reflect the avalanche danger from Jan. 22, 2012, which he called “the worst day for avalanche conditions in Colorado ski area history.”
Photographs and videos of the area shortly after the accident will be more accurate, Heckbert said.
“It would be prejudicial to (the Conlin family) to allow a jury view of the scene where the physical conditions of the scene are not substantially similar to the physical conditions present on Jan. 22, 2012,” reads the family’s response to Vail’s motion to change venues for the case.
Vail Resorts on Friday filed its response to the Conlin filing. The company said Heckbert treated his response to the change of venue motion “like a press release” that “misstates (or completely misses) the relevant law and fails to balance Vail’s showing that a transfer is warranted.”
Vail said “virtually every identified fact witness” lives in Eagle County. The company again restated its convenience argument, saying Eagle County would be the best place should a jury visit the site.
The new judge and lack of a trial date, the filing argues, “presents an opportunity to move this case without prejudice.”
While Vail Resorts is not requesting that a jury visit Prima Cornice, “an Eagle County trial will serve the interests of justice by facilitating a visit to Vail Mountain, a crucial piece of evidence in this case,” the Friday filing says.
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasonblevins
