Under the instructor’s direction, the class would go approximately halfway up the slope and then traverse down it, trying to imitate the instructor’s turns.
This had been done several times when the instructor demonstrated a snowplow turn and stopped some 10 feet below the plaintiff, motioning him to follow. As he approached her, the instructor screamed and James looked around to see a skier speeding towards him.
James attempted to avoid being struck by throwing himself flat on the ground, but to no avail. One of the other skier’s skis hit him, causing severe injuries. The other skier however, continued on his way down.
Presumably because of the unknown identity of the other skier, James commenced suit against the ski school operator and the ski instructor, claiming that their management and control of the ski school was negligent and that this negligence caused the accident. The jury, however concluded otherwise and James lost.
On appeal, however, the Supreme Court of California concluded that the jury had not been properly instructed as to the theory of James’ case, which was that the defendants were not relieved of liability for their negligence because of the intervening act of the other skier.
The Court noted that the jury should have been told that it must find the defendants negligent “if they did not use the ordinary care of a reasonably prudent person in the operation, management and control of the ski school . . .” Moreover, said the Court, if the jury is satisfied that the defendants were negligent in the first place, it cannot find them relieved of liability for that negligence because of the intervening act of the hit and run skier, “if that intervening act was reasonably foreseeable by the defendants.”
Thus, if the defendants were negligent and could reasonably foresee a hit and run skier, “the chain of causation is not broken, and (defendants) remain liable.”
The matter was returned for a new trial.
