In the Dillworth v. Gambardella, 776 F. Supp. 170 (D. Vt. 1991) is a case where the
Plaintiff sues a skier that feel and thereby knocking down the plaintiff who feel and injured his back. The jury came back with a defendant verdict and the plaintiff files a motion for a new trial on the grounds that the court made an error in instructing the jury as to the Vermont Sports
Injury Statute and its relation to the doctrine of assumption of risk and the applications to this case. The appellate court denied their motion for a new trial and stated “that the sports injury statute applied to participants in any sport.” The Assumption of Risk doctrine states that
“when a risk or danger is obvious such that it is widely known by reasonable people under the particular circumstances and necessary such that it is impossible or unreasonably difficult or expensive to eliminate, the person engaged in the dangerous activity assumes those obvious and necessary risks,” such as with the risks of falling in downhill skiing and risk that when done in groups other skiers will fall. The plaintiff in attempt to appeal stated that the assumption of risk only applied to the ski resort operators and their actions not that of other skiers, and that the defendant could be accountable for comparative negligence, as the skier was negligent and that negligence caused the plaintiff’s injuries.The sports injury doctrine, relating to 12 V.S.A. § 1037 “which established that there are inherent dangers to be accepted by skiers as a matter of law.” The motion for a new trial was denied and “ found that the sports injury statute applied to participants in any sport,” not just the operators. “While skiers fall, as a matter of common knowledge, that does not make every fall a danger inherent to the sport. If the fall is due to no breach of duty on the part of the defendant, its risk is assumed in the primary sense and there can be no recovery,” and the jury considered a fall that caused the plaintiffs injury to be an inherent risk to that sport, and therefore no negligence on part of the defendant. This inheritance of assumptions of risk and if the action is applicable to the case is a question of fact for the jury, and therefore the jury in this matter found it applicable, which was not thereby applicable for a new trial.
The jury in the Dillworth matter applied the assumption of risks to all participants in sports, not just the operators of ski resort. In regards to dangerous activities and sports in general the court stated that
“when a primary assumption of the risk exists there is no liability to the plaintiff because there is no negligence on the part of the defendant to begin with; the danger to the plaintiff is not one which the defendant is required to extinguish or warn about. Having no duty to begin with, there is no breach of duty to constitute negligence,” showing that even other participants not just those in charge of the activity can not be negligent for risks that are inherent to the activity. This assumption of risk has a broader appeal than just skiing and was stated that “A person who takes part in any sport, including skiing, accepts as a

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matter of law the inherent dangers of the sport insofar as those dangers are obvious to the participants and necessary to the conduct of the sport.”
If the assumption of risk was not applicable in this activity then there would be an ability to find comparative negligence with a participant or coordinator of the activity, even if it was an inherent risk with the activity, such as falling while skiing. If you can find negligence their is a duty to warn or prevent danger, and in that is where a tort can be created. If this was applicable to the Dillworth matter than partial comparative negligence could be an argument stating that the Plaintiff was responsible for his activities while skiing, but the defendant was at least 50% negligent as his inability to ski and thereafter fall caused the plaintiff to fall and injure his back.
This would if the jury agreed award the plaintiff damages. Th benefit of partial comparative negligence is that it does not have to be a no fault of the plaintiff, just less than 50% fault of the plaintiff, in most jurisdictions, or for pure comparative negligence the defendant has to have some fault and the plaintiff can recover the damages times the defendants percentage of fault.