Trial pits skiers against each other

One's serious injuries in 2004 mishap leads to $1.3 million suit

Sara Burnett, Rocky Mountain News

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Jason "Jake" White stood atop a quiet Vail mountain with two friends, buckled his ski boots and headed down Timberline face.

White, a former competitive skier working at a Vail ski shop, got permission from his boss to take off early that day in April 2004.

The sun was shining, and a storm from the previous day had made conditions ideal.

But as White approached the split to Snag Park, something went wrong.

According to White, another skier came up behind him then made a sharp right turn - an account the other skier disputes.

White says the two locked skis. The 24-year-old took a second or two to free himself but, before he could regain his balance, smashed into a 6-foot-tall pole.

When White opened his eyes, he couldn't lift his head. His arm had been jammed up into his sleeve, and his leg was twisted at an odd, 70-degree angle.

"I knew something really bad had happened," White said Tuesday.

It took 10 surgeries to put White back together. Now he thinks the other skier should pay.

In a civil trial under way in U.S. District Court, White and his attorney are asking a jury to award $1.3 million damages from the other skier, Michael Kaiden. They say the New Yorker was out of control and violating Colorado law by not keeping proper lookout or avoiding a collision with a person skiing below him.

Kaiden says there's no way the crash was his fault.

A former competitive skier who first put on skis at age 2 or 3, Kaiden told jurors he skied Vail many times before this particular trip. Earlier that day, he and a friend had skied the same run where the crash occurred.

Kaiden said he was headed down Timberline en route to the back bowls just before the crash. It was quiet in the area, and he hadn't passed anyone. He saw no one in front of him.

Kaiden said he was turning to his right when he saw "at my 5 o'clock, someone coming right at me."

Kaiden turned sharply to the left to avoid hitting White, and the two never made contact, he testified. By the time he had turned away, White had hit the post and fallen to the ground.

Kaiden told jurors he stuck around until ski patrol members arrived to take White to the hospital. He filled out an incident report then continued with his friend to ski the back bowls.

Asked by White's attorney, Beth Klein, when he called to check on White, Kaiden said never.

"I didn't feel it was necessary," he said.

"I didn't know the guy, and I didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't a major concern of mine."

In court documents, Kaiden said the blame should fall at least partially on Vail ski area for erecting the pole that White hit - a claim the judge threw out before the trial started.

He also argued that White was "comparatively negligent" and assumed a known risk when he went skiing that day.

A friend of White's who was skiing with him, Janel Ippolito, testified the two men were even with each other when Kaiden made the sharp right turn.

In the incident report she filed the day of the crash, Ippolito said the men's skis and poles may have hit each other but that their bodies did not touch.

She also testified Tuesday that White has been able to go back to skiing and that he has resumed working in Vail.

The trial before District Judge Phillip S. Figa is expected to last through Friday. If the jury finds in favor of White, the final decision on how much money to award would be left to the jury and the court.

Other high-profile skiing collisions in Colorado

• Nathan Hall became the first skier in Colorado to be convicted of criminally negligent homicide. Hall, according to witnesses, had been drinking when he slammed into Allen Cobb, 33, a Denver woodworker, in 1997 at Vail. Cobb was a novice skier. Hall, who was 18 at the time, was a ski lift operator for Vail.

• Michael Wolff, a Texas man who got drunk and slammed into a children's ski school class at Sunlight Ski Area in March 2003, received the heaviest penalty ever handed down in a Colorado ski collision. Wolff, then 20, was ordered to pay $9,300 in restitution and serve 240 days in jail. He skied into four children, injuring two.

• Randell Berg received a sentence of one year probation and anger management classes after pleading guilty to pummeling a teenage girl who snowboarded over the back of his 8-year-old daughter's skis in January 2006 at Steamboat Springs. Berg, 52 at the time, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor third-degree assault and did not seriously injure the snowboarder.