STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Idaho’s small ski resorts are breathing a little easier following a decision of the Idaho Supreme Court holding that a lower court was right to dismiss a lawsuit by the widow of a skier who died after crashing into a snowmaking gun at Sun Valley.

The resort on Thursday declined to comment.

The man’s widow Laura Milus filed the lawsuit alleging

The man, a 65-year-old, 210-pound doctor from Boise, was skiing with “poor control” on Lower River Run, according to court records. He skied across the backs of another skier’s skis, fell and hit a yellow-padded snowmaking gun.

A lower court granted a summary judgment in favor of Sun Valley ski resort based on Idaho’s 1979 Ski Area Liability Act. But the Idaho Supreme Court reversed that decision in 2023 saying a jury should determine whether the ski resort was partially to blame.

Supreme Court Justice Colleen Zahn wrote in this week’s decision that the record establishes that Snow Gun 16 was plainly marked, according to Betsy Z. Russell in the Idaho Capital Sun.

Finding Sun Valley negligible, regardless of the fact that the gun was clearly marked and the skier was skiing out of control, could have had serious implications for Idaho’s 19 ski areas, driving up liability insurance costs and possibly putting smaller areas out of business.

According to Idaho law, skiers assume the inherent risks of the sport, including the possibility of colliding with trees and snowmaking equipment. For their part, ski resorts could be held liable for accidents caused by poorly maintained lifts.

The Idaho Supreme Court in this week’s decision left the door open to more lawsuits over ski injuries in Idaho by upholding its earlier ruling that departed from decades of precedent in how the state’s Ski Area Liability Law should be interpreted with regard to the legal “standard of care,” wrote Russell.