Skiers Could Face Misdemeanor Charges If New North Carolina Law Is Passed

A bill under consideration by North Carolina lawmakers could reshape liability and rules on ski slopes across the state, including making the “misuse” of a ski pass a misdemeanor.

Examples of the possible skier misbehavior, according to WUNC, cover “using a private ski area without a valid pass, using a stolen or fraudulent pass or leaving the scene of a crash with another skier.”

Per the bill, those violations would amount to a Class 1 misdemeanor, which, under local law, is punishable by “an absolute minimum of 1 day of community punishment to an absolute maximum of 120 days of active punishment, depending on the defendant’s prior record level.”

Skiing in closed areas is already a misdemeanor in several states, like California, Wyoming, and Washington.

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The bill further outlines the duties and responsibilities of skiers. After a crash, for example, skiers would have to provide their name and address to a ski area employee. 

Ski areas would have new responsibilities, too, including posting signs that give “reasonable notice” of trail conditions. The bill also sets a one-year statute of limitations on skier injury lawsuits and limits their monetary value.

Representative Dudley Greene said the legislation is based on “some things that have been adopted in Colorado or West Virginia or both,” according to WUNC.

State Affairs reported that North Carolina’s Ski Safety Act hasn’t seen any major changes in 45 years, but representative Deb Butler thinks the protections ski areas already have are strong because of contributory negligence.

North Carolina, like three other states in the U.S., has a contributory negligence standard. Under it, plaintiffs—people who are suing for damages—can’t recover anything if they were at all responsible for their accident, generally.

“It’s clear to me that this is doing a lot more than just defining things,” Butler said, per WUNC. “This is a clear attempt to limit liability.”

For representative Charles Smith, the statute of limitations period of one year for ski injury lawsuits seemed too short.

“That puts a burden on the person injured to seek an attorney when they should be recovering,” he said, according to State Affairs.

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