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Assumed Risk? You Decide.

Assumed Risk? You Decide.

The deaths of Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili at the Olympics and snowboarder Elliott Eklund at Bristol Mountain just east of Rochester have caused many people to ask whether or not the families of those men have a good case to sue anyone responsible for their deaths. Should the families retain an injury lawyer? Should the attorney take the case? In order to answer these questions, we must revisit the case of Sean Morgan vs. the State of New York, discussed in my very first newsletter back in November, 2008.

Sean Morgan was a bobsledder and former Olympian who was very badly injured in an accident while training on the Olympic bobsled run at Mt. VanHovenberg, just outside of Lake Placid. Morgan was the driver of a two man bobsled, and when his brakeman fell out of the sled, Morgan couldn’t reach the brake and the sled crashed into a concrete wall at the end of the course, causing Morgan massive brain injuries. The case went to the highest court in New York, the Court of Appeals, which ruled that Morgan assumed the risk of crashing “inherent in a sport whose aim it is to streak down a mountainside on a sheet of ice approaching eighty miles per hour”, and that therefore the State (which owns the bobsled track) was not responsible.

What about the Olympic luger case then? My guess is that if New York law applied, the luger’s family would likely be prohibited from suing the track organizers or anyone else for his death. As for Mr. Eklund, while I feel a tremendous amount of sympathy for his family, New York law would certainly prohibit his family from suing.

What do you think? Did these two men participating in winter sports assume the risk of being killed?

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