The Ski Safety Act has protected Colorado ski resorts from legal liability for the last several decades. However, this act has come into question after an accident in March 2022.

According to Crested Butte News, in 2022  a then 16-year-old Annie Miller attempted to get seated on the Paradise lift at Crested Butte Mountain Resort when she fell 30 feet onto heavily-packed snow and suffered a spinal injury, which left her paralyzed. 

Miller’s fall resulted in a shattered C7 vertebra, bruised heart, lacerated liver and injured lungs. As a result, she will not walk again. 

Typically, Vail Resorts would not be liable for this sort of injury, due to the Ski Safety Act. However, Miller’s family wants to seek damages from the ski resorts for injuries she suffered when she fell from the lift at Crested Butte Mountain Resort. 

The Ski Safety Act was passed in 1979, and protects Vail Resorts from legal liability if any person is injured while skiing or snowboarding. 

The Durango Herald reports the Miller family is claiming the lift operators were negligent when they did not stop the chairlift as Miller was unable to properly load onto the chairlift. The family filed a lawsuit in December 2022 in the Broomfield County District Court, accusing Crested Butte Mountain Resorts and owner Vail Resorts of violations of duty care, negligence and gross negligence. Crested Butte News reports in April 2023, the district court dismissed the two claims for violation of duty care and negligence. 

However, the family appealed the Broomfield court’s decision to the Colorado Supreme Court, on the grounds that the liability waiver signed by Miller’s father should not relieve ski operators of their duties under the Ski Safety Act. Miller’s legal team is asking the Colorado Supreme Court “to consider whether a ski area in Colorado can create contractual immunity from statutory duty of care in a contract that is part of a ski lift pass,” according to the Colorado Sun.