© 2025 KPCW

KPCW
Spencer F. Eccles Broadcast Center
PO Box 1372 | 460 Swede Alley
Park City | UT | 84060
Office: (435) 649-9004 | Studio: (435) 655-8255

Music & Artist Inquiries: music@kpcw.org
News Tips & Press Releases: news@kpcw.org
Volunteer Opportunities
General Inquiries: info@kpcw.org
Listen Like a Local Park City & Heber City Summit & Wasatch counties, Utah
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Supreme Court shakes Idaho ski areas, overturning decades of liability precedent

Family skiing at Sun Valley
Grant Gunderson
/
Sun Valley Resort
Family skiing at Sun Valley

An Idaho court will hear arguments this month on whether to reconsider its judgement on a 2021 liability lawsuit.

The case stems from a 2019 incident at Sun Valley Resort involving a Boise man who skied across the back of another person’s skis and then fell, crashing head-first into a tall yellow-padded snowmaking tower.

The Utah News Dispatch reports the skier, Stewart Milus, died from his injuries.

His widow sued Sun Valley Resort in 2021 where a district court sided with the resort, citing Idaho’s 1979 Ski Area Liability Act.

The Idaho Supreme Court reversed the decision in 2023, saying a jury should weigh whether the resort was partially to blame, regardless of the skier's actions.

If the initial decision stands, it could have large implications for skiing in Idaho, driving up ski area liability insurance costs and potentially putting the state's small ski hills out of business.

That is what happened at Stratton Mountain after an infamous Vermont Supreme Court decision in 1978 found the ski resort 100% at fault.

The skier, James Sunday, who lost control, fell, hit a boulder off the trail and suffered injuries that left him a quadriplegic, was awarded $1.5 million in damages.

Liability insurance costs for Vermont ski areas skyrocketed, and the state lost many of its small, local ski hills.

The case prompted most of the 37 U.S. states, including Utah, with ski areas to pass ski area liability laws, many of them similar to Idaho’s, which was last amended in 2014.

Most of those laws have repeatedly been upheld in court.