Dead Skier’s Family Awarded $1.4 Million

An Orange County Superior Court judge has awarded $1.4 million to the family of a Laguna Hills man who died attempting to ski a difficult run while training with a National Ski Patrol instructor.

Judge John M. Watson ruled that John Kane, who was trying out for the volunteer ski patrol at Bear Mountain in 1995, died in part because the ski patrol instructor told him he could not join the patrol if he did not attempt the run.

Kane fell while skiing the Geronimo Run, the resort’s most difficult course. He skidded 300 yards off the run and fell into a canyon, crashing into rocks and trees.

Colleen Kane, injured when she fell trying to rescue her husband, required multiple surgeries on her leg, said her attorney, Thomas H. Hicks.

Although ski resorts typically advise skiers that they use the mountain at their own risk, this case was different, Hicks said, because the National Ski Patrol was supervising and directing the Kanes’ activities.

“They were in an instruction class with the NSP, whose purpose is to ensure a skier’s safety,” Hicks said.

Bear Mountain settled with the Kanes out of court. The National Ski Patrol requested a trial to be decided by a judge.

Attorneys for the patrol expressed dismay at the judgment, contending the judge ignored evidence that Kane and his wife were expert skiers who had skied that particular run for more than a decade.

“[The judge] determined that it was reckless for these ski patrollers to hold a clinic on a run that was open to the public and that had been skied on all morning,” attorney Terry Higham said. “How is that reckless?”

The judge also should have considered that anyone who wants to be a ski patroller has to be able to ski all an area’s runs under all kinds of snow conditions, Higham said.

“Basically this was an unfortunate accident,” Higham said. “And, unfortunately, things like this happen in skiing.”

The patrol plans an appeal.