Police & Courts Idaho Supreme Court overturns earlier ruling in Sun Valley ski death case

The Idaho Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously overturned a controversial earlier decision that had sent alarm through the ski industry in Idaho and nationwide, holding instead that a lower court was right to dismiss a lawsuit from the widow of a skier who died after crashing into a snowmaking tower gun at Sun Valley.

However, the court, with just one justice dissenting, upheld its earlier ruling that departed from decades of precedent in Idaho in how the state’s Ski Area Liability Law should be interpreted with regard to the legal “standard of care.” That potentially opens the door to far more lawsuits over ski injuries in Idaho, rather than reducing ski area liability, as lawmakers who originally sponsored the 1979 law said they intended.

Justice Cynthia Meyer, in her dissent, wrote that the law is clear as written. “Whether it is wise or socially unsound is not for us to decide. But that is the framework the legislature enacted,” she wrote. She added, quoting an earlier Idaho Supreme Court case, “The wisdom, justice, policy, or expediency of a statute are questions for the legislature alone.”

Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, an attorney and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, declined to take up a 2024 bill from Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, to amend the law after the initial decision, saying he preferred to wait until the court’s processes were completed.

https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2025/06/26/idaho-supreme-court-overturns-earlier-ruling-in-sun-valley-ski-death-case/