For more than a century, Utah courts have said employers cannot use waivers to prevent their employees from suing them for negligence, if those employees are injured.
That’s how Summit County’s 3rd District Court saw it when two former lift operators injured in a snowmobile accident sued Deer Valley Resort six years ago.
But the Utah Supreme Court may be tipping the scales back in favor of employers’ waivers, rather than litigious former employees.
In a March 26 decision, justices disagreed with Judge Richard Mrazik’s interpretation of a 1907 case involving a Utah railroad employee.
In that case — Pugmire v. Oregon Short Line Railroad Co. — a state court said the railroad company could not enforce a waiver Pugmire had signed.
Although the contract seemed to release the railroad company from liability, when Pugmire was injured in an accident, she was allowed to sue.
Fast forward to March of 2020 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Deer Valley closed and then laid off employees on March 15, including lift operators William Olson and Lark Pyper.
The supreme court ruling says Olson and Pyper returned on St. Patrick’s Day to hand in their uniforms when they learned about a social gathering on the mountain.
They hitched a ride on a snowmobile piloted by one of their friends, a mountain supervisor. But the sled crashed and Olson and Pyper were seriously injured, the decision states.
Deer Valley asked 3rd District Court to dismiss the ensuing lawsuit since the lift operators had signed waivers, much like skiers do when they buy a lift ticket.
Mrazik declined to dismiss the case, ruling that the waiver didn’t apply since it didn’t apply in the 1907 case.
The Utah Supreme Court now says the century-old precedent only applies to work-related injuries. According to the decision, everyone agrees that the Deer Valley lift operators’ injuries were not work-related.
That could open the door for Deer Valley to use its waivers to fend off its old employees' negligence claims.
The ruling sends the case back to 3rd District Court for further review. No hearings have been scheduled.
Deer Valley Resort is a financial supporter of KPCW.
