Survey of Ski Law in the United States
by James H. Chalat
To read cases specific to a particular state, click the state name, above.
NORTH CAROLINA - 2006
North Carolina has adopted a ski safety statute, N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 99C-1 to 99C-5, that provides for the creation of duties among skiers, passenger skiers, and operators. The breach of any of these statutory obligations constitutes negligence per se. Id. at § 99C-3. Tramways are subject to Department of Labor rules and regulation (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 95-116), and an operator of a tramway is not a common carrier (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 99C-5). Skiers have a plentitude of duties including skiing within their abilities, maintaining control, heeding warnings, using lifts safely, and not contributing to the injury or harm of another, or their property. Id. at § 99C-2. Operators must mark trails and known, hidden dangers, provide a ski patrol, and must not engage in any conduct that wilfully of negligently contributes to injury of another person or another's property. Id. at § 99C-2. Competitors are implied to assume the risk of course conditions that an inspection would have revealed, pursuant to § 99C-4. Ice rinks are subject to regulation as amusement devices under §§ 95-111.1 to 95-111.18. It may be worth noting that in 2003, North Carolina adopted an assumption of inherent risk statutory scheme covering "hazardous recreation," including skateboarding, inline skating, and freestyle bicycling. §§ 99E-21 to -25.
Cases
The court in Strawbridge v. Sugar Mountain Resort, Inc., 320 F.Supp.2d 425 (W.D.N.C. 2004) refused to enforce an exculpatory clause contained on an injured skier's lift ticket that was claimed to have contracted away the operator's negligence; Strawbridge was injured when he encountered a bare spot that operator had failed to mark, in violation of a statutory duty. In deciding motions to dismiss, the court a month later declared that in North Carolina, the doctrine of assumption of risk is based upon actual knowledge or a fair and reasonable opportunity to know, and usually this knowledge and opportunity must come in time to be of use. Strawbridge v. Sugar Mountain Resort, Inc., 328 F.Supp.2d 610 (W.D.N.C. 2004). The Strawbridge decisions may be factually distinguishable from other potential failure to warn cases, as the court observed only five years earlier in an unpublished case that: "if the law were to be read to require the posting of signs before every grassy spot on a ski slope, Sugar Mountain would more resemble a giant slalom course than a recreational ski resort." Poole v. Sugar Mountain Resort, Inc., 1999 WL 33321102 (W.D.N.C.).
