Detroit, MI – A federal court judge has given the family of a Canadian boy, who was 12 when his leg was crushed by a groomer at Michigan’s Mt. Brighton ski area, a deadline of Monday to show why their case should not be dismissed.

Austin Miles, of Amherstburg, Ontario, was on a school field trip to ski area in Brighton, Mich., on the afternoon of Jan. 30, 2008. The operator of a snow groomer ran over Miles at the bottom of Mt. Brighton’s beginner slope and dragged the boy approximately 200 feet.

According to the complaint, workers spent 90 minutes extricating Miles’ leg from the groomer’s tiller attachment using steel-cutting equipment. Miles sustained multiple leg fractures in the incident after his limb was reportedly wrapped 270 degrees around the groomer’s tiller bar.

The lawsuit, filed Jan. 19 in U.S. District Court in Detroit, seeks unspecified damages from both the ski area and the groomer operator, Robert James Sturgis. It alleges that both acted in a reckless and negligent manner in violation of the state’s Ski Area Safety Act.

“Skiing is a dangerous sport with many inherent risks. A skier’s use of a resort is, almost without exception, expressly conditioned upon the acceptance of those risks,” says David B. Cronheim, Esq., Chief Legal Correspondent for First Tracks!! Online.  “Most skiers have flipped over their lift tickets and seen, though perhaps not read, the laundry list of things for which a resort disclaims liability. Few realize, however, that they are actually entering into a binding contract, a contract based on the terms on the ticket  which are as favorable as possible to the resort.

“Moreover, many states supplement resorts’ contractual protections by statute,” continues Cronheim, referring in this case to the Michigan Ski Area Safety Act. “While these types of laws and contractual arrangements may seem very anti-consumer, without them, insurance would be prohibitively expensive. Many resorts would be forced to close because their insurance premiums would skyrocket.

“However, there is a growing trend to find these waivers void on the theory that they are contrary to public policy. For example, in 2007 the Utah Supreme Court found ski resort liability waivers to be unenforceable in a case involving Snowbird. Vermont and Colorado had already found such waivers void,” Cronheim concludes.

The court’s Order to Show Cause is to determine whether or not the lawsuit filed by the family of Austin Miles of Amherstburg, Ontario, will proceed in federal court as opposed to a Michigan state court. The resort wants to try the case in state court as opposed to federal court.

“Ultimately, these types of cases pit the public benefit in having ski resorts being able to afford insurance and stay in business against often very sympathetic plaintiffs,” Cronheim acknowledges. “Juries are notoriously sympathetic to injured children and awards can be quite high, so Mt. Brighton will likely do all it can to keep this case from going to trial.”