Hughes v. Seven Springs Farm, Inc.

• Decision Date: 05 December 2000
• Citation: 563 Pa. 501,762 A.2d 339
• Parties: Charity J. HUGHES, Appellee, v. SEVEN SPRINGS FARM, INC., t/d/b/a Seven Springs Mountain Resort, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

762 A.2d 339

563 Pa. 501

Charity J. HUGHES, Appellee, v. SEVEN SPRINGS FARM, INC., t/d/b/a Seven Springs Mountain Resort, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued March 6, 2000.

Decided December 5, 2000.

Anthony W. Hinkle, Pittsburgh, for appellant, Seven Springs.

Simon B. John, Uniontown, for appellee, Charity Hughes.

Before FLAHERTY, C.J., and ZAPPALA, CAPPY, CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN and SAYLOR, JJ.

OPINION

CASTILLE, Justice.

On January 29, 1992, appellee, Charity Hughes, a self-described intermediate level skier, traveled with her high school ski club to Seven Springs Mountain Resort (hereinafter "appellant"). After completing a run down the mountain, appellee was skiing towards the lift through an area at the base of the mountain where several ski trails converge when she was struck by an unidentified skier descending the slope behind her. As a result, appellee injured her right knee and her back.

Appellee filed suit against the ski resort in the Court of Common Pleas of Fayette County, alleging that the collision was the result of appellant's negligence. Appellant, in turn, filed a motion for summary judgment, which was granted on June 2, 1998. The Honorable Conrad B. Capuzzi held that, pursuant to the Pennsylvania Skier's Responsibility Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 7102(c) (the "Act"), appellee had assumed the risk of colliding with another skier. In addition, the court noted that appellee had admitted that she was aware that she could get hurt while skiing and yet had signed a Release Agreement releasing appellant from all liability for injury, prior to her entering the ski facility.

On February 25, 1999, a split panel of the Superior Court reversed the grant of summary judgment and remanded the case for trial. The panel majority concluded that it could not determine as a matter of law: (1) that appellee's injury was caused by an occurrence inherent in the sport of skiing; (2) that appellee's experience or knowledge caused her to recognize the risk of being hit by an errant skier while she was at the base of the slope and that she willingly accepted that particular risk; or (3) that appellee's action in skiing towards the ski lift at the bottom of the slope constituted "downhill skiing" for purposes of the assumption of the risk provision in the Act. The panel majority also concluded that the Release Agreement appellee had signed applied only to the rental ski equipment and injuries related to that equipment, not to the danger posed by another skier, and thus could not bar her claim. 727 A.2d at 137-38.

Judge Cirillo dissented. In his view, the term "downhill skiing" employed in the Act applies to all activities related to the sport and "it is an inherent part of downhill skiing that one empties into a basin at the bottom of a ski slope with the intent to turn around and approach the ski lift and return to the top of the slope to complete another run." Id. at 139. In addition, the dissent noted that the ski lift ticket appellee had purchased stated, in pertinent part, that "There are inherent and other risks in the sport of skiing ... [which] include, but are not limited to ... collisions with ... other skiers." The ticket also advised that any person not agreeing to "voluntarily assume the risk of these injuries" should not purchase a ticket. In light of these undisputed facts, the dissent would have held that there was no issue for the jury: reasonable minds could not differ as to the conclusion that appellee assumed the risk of the skiing injury she suffered. Id.

This Court has not yet had occasion to address the Act's preservation of the common law assumption of the risk doctrine in downhill skiing cases. We granted review to examine whether that doctrine bars a suit brought against a ski resort by a skier who, while skiing towards the ski lift through a common area at the base of the mountain, is struck and injured by another skier coming down that mountain. For the reasons that follow, we hold that it does.

This Court's scope of review of questions of law, such as the question of whether summary judgment is appropriate here, is plenary. O'Donoghue v. Laurel Savings Ass'n, 556 Pa. 349, 354, 728 A.2d 914, 916 (1999). Summary judgment may be entered only in those cases where the record clearly demonstrates that there are no genuine issues of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Dean v. Commonwealth, Dep't of Transp., 561 Pa. 503, 507, 751 A.2d 1130, 1132 (2000). The record must be viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and all doubts as to the existence of a genuine issue of material fact must be resolved against the moving party. Id. When the facts are so clear that reasonable minds cannot differ, summary judgment is appropriate. Cochran v. GAF Corp., 542 Pa. 210, 215, 666 A.2d 245, 248 (1995).

As a general rule, the doctrine of assumption of the risk, with its attendant "complexities" and "difficulties," see, generally, Howell v. Clyde, 533 Pa. 151, 620 A.2d 1107 (1993) (Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court by Flaherty, J.), has been supplanted by the Pennsylvania General Assembly's adoption of a system of recovery based on comparative fault in the Comparative Negligence Act. 42 Pa. C.S. § 7102(a)-(b).¹ However, two years after enacting the Comparative Negligence Act in 1978, the legislature amended the statute to address more specifically the question of injuries arising from downhill skiing. The Skier's Responsibility Act amendment, which is somewhat unusual in that it begins with legislative findings, specifically preserves the assumption of the risk doctrine in cases involving downhill skiing injuries. The Act states:

(c) Downhill Skiing.—

(1) The General Assembly finds that the sport of downhill skiing is practiced by a large number of citizens of this Commonwealth and also attracts to this Commonwealth large numbers of nonresidents significantly contributing to the economy of this Commonwealth. It is recognized that as in some other sports, there are inherent risks in the sport of downhill skiing.

(2) The doctrine of voluntary assumption of the risk as it applies to downhill skiing injuries and damages is not modified by subsections (a) and (b).

42 Pa.C.S. § 7102(c).

The General Assembly having specifically preserved the doctrine in this particular instance, the question becomes what does the doctrine entail, and what effect does it have upon the viability of appellee's lawsuit. The Restatement Second of Torts, § 496A, summarizes the general principle of assumption of the risk as follows: "A plaintiff who voluntarily assumes a risk of harm arising from the negligent or reckless conduct of the defendant cannot recover for such harm." In practice, the doctrine was more complicated. The comment to the Restatement notes that the doctrine has been used by the courts "in at least four different senses, and the distinctions seldom have been made clear." Id. § 496A comment C. Those four meanings are summarized in the comment as follows:

1. In its simplest form, assumption of risk means that the plaintiff has given his express consent to relieve the defendant of an obligation to exercise care for his protection, and agrees to take his chances as to injury from a known or possible risk. The result is that the defendant, who would otherwise be under a duty to exercise such care, is relieved of that responsibility, and is no longer under any duty to protect the plaintiff....

2. A second, and closely related, meaning is that the plaintiff has entered voluntarily into some relation with the defendant which he knows to involve the risk, and so is regarded as tacitly or impliedly agreeing to relieve the defendant of responsibility, and to take his own chances. Thus a spectator entering a baseball park may be regarded as consenting that the players may proceed with the game without taking precautions to protect him from being hit by the ball. Again the legal result is that the defendant is relieved of his duty to the plaintiff....

3. In a third type of situation the plaintiff, aware of a risk created by the negligence of the defendant, proceeds or continues voluntarily to encounter it. For example, an independent contractor who finds that he has been furnished by his employer with a machine which is in dangerous condition, and that the employer, after notice, has failed to repair it or to substitute another, may continue to work with the machine. He may not be negligent in doing so, since his decision may be an entirely reasonable one, because the risk is relatively slight in comparison with the utility of his own conduct; and he may even act with unusual caution because he is aware of the danger. The same policy of the common law which denies recovery to one who expressly consents to accept a risk will, however, prevent his recovery in such a case....

4. To be distinguished from these three situations is the fourth, in which the plaintiff's conduct in voluntarily encountering a known risk is itself unreasonable, and amounts to contributory negligence. There is thus negligence on the part of both plaintiff and defendant; and the plaintiff is barred from recovery, not only by his implied consent to accept the risk, but also by the policy of the law which refuses to allow him to impose upon the defendant a loss for which his own negligence was in part responsible....

Id.

The assumption of risk doctrine has been the subject of some criticism. For example, a plurality of the Court in Rutter v. Northeastern Beaver County Sch. Dist., 496 Pa. 590, 437 A.2d 1198 (1981), advocated abolition of the doctrine entirely except where expressly preserved by statute, in cases of express assumption of risk, or strict liability cases brought under § 402A of the Restatement. Id. at 613, 437 A.2d at 1209 (Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court by Flaherty, J.). See also Howell, supra, at 153-54, 620 A.2d at 1108. The Rutter...