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Lakewood, Colorado. CGH Injury Lawyers represents ski accident victims from Lakewood from our Denver office.
Lakewood, Colorado

Lakewood Ski Accident Lawyers, at the Bottom of the Hill

The mountain sends its worst injuries downhill, and Lakewood is one of the places they stop. St. Anthony Hospital sits on West 2nd Place as a Level I trauma center, and it is the home base of Flight For Life Colorado. A skier hurt an hour up I-70 can end up being treated a few miles from a Lakewood front door. We handle Colorado Ski Safety Act claims from our Denver office at 2701 Lawrence St., and we charge no fee unless we win.

No fee unless we win
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Our Denver Office CGH Injury Lawyers 2701 Lawrence St., Suite 201 Denver, CO 80205 (303) 209-9395 Se habla espanol
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  • Colorado runs ski injuries through a statute of their own before ordinary negligence law gets a say.
  • What happens on a chairlift is handled on different terms from what happens on the snow.
  • The release on your pass is a contract, and contracts have edges.
  • Both routes give you 2 years, and they get that 2 years from different statutes.
  • Consultations cost nothing, and our fee comes out of a recovery.
The law on the mountain

What the Colorado Ski Safety Act does to a ski injury claim

Most injury cases open with a simple question: was somebody careless? A ski case opens one step earlier. Colorado passed a statute that pre-sorts these events, and the sorting happens before anyone argues about carelessness at all. That statute is the Ski Safety Act of 1979, C.R.S. 33-44-101 and following.

The heart of it is a list. C.R.S. 33-44-103 defines the inherent dangers and risks of skiing, and the definition is long on purpose. It reaches changing weather. It reaches snow in every condition the mountain produces, including ice, hard pack, powder, crust, slush, cut-up snow, and machine-made snow. It reaches bare spots, forest growth, rocks, stumps, streambeds, cliffs, extreme terrain, and trees. It reaches variations in steepness, whether the mountain made them or a groomer did. It reaches impact with lift towers, signs, posts, fences, hydrants, water pipes, and other structures people built. An injury that lands on that list belongs to the skier who suffered it.

Then the same section turns around and limits itself, in two sentences that carry nearly every claim worth bringing. The first says inherent dangers and risks of skiing do not include the negligence of a ski area operator as described at C.R.S. 33-44-104(2). The second says nothing in the section limits an operator's liability for injury caused by the use or operation of ski lifts. Read the list, then read the two exceptions, and you have the shape of Colorado ski litigation.

A note on accuracy, because bad summaries of this Act are everywhere. The statute is built on the term "ski area" and on sliding downhill or jumping on snow or ice. It does not sort resorts by style of skiing, and it contains no helmet rule for anyone of any age.

The critical distinction

Which side of the line your injury lands on

Everything that follows in a ski case depends on one early determination, and it is worth understanding before you talk to anybody's insurer.

Inherent dangers (no recovery)

  • Snow and ice in all their forms, and the ground showing through when the cover runs thin
  • Weather, and what the weather does to visibility
  • The mountain's own furniture: rocks, stumps, streambeds, cliffs, forest growth, and trees
  • Terrain that changes pitch, whether by nature, slope design, snowmaking, or grooming
  • Striking a lift tower, sign, post, fence, hydrant, or water pipe that is where it has always been

Operator negligence (recovery possible)

  • Lift incidents, including bad loads, abrupt stops, drops, and unloading injuries
  • Signs the statute requires that were absent, wrong, or impossible to read
  • Grooming or snowmaking machinery run on an open trail without the warning the Act calls for
  • Built obstacles left unpadded or unmarked in a skiing area
  • Careless acts by resort staff, instructors, or patrol

Which side you land on is an early read, not a verdict. Take a lift tower. Hitting one is squarely on the first list, until you learn the pad that belonged on that tower was gone, and then it moves. Nobody should accept the first answer to that question before the records show up.

Skier duties and the downhill rule

Claims against another skier under C.R.S. 33-44-109

When the person who caused your injury was another skier and not the resort, the statute stops working against you and starts working for you. C.R.S. 33-44-109(1) says the risk of a skier-skier collision is neither an inherent risk nor a risk assumed by a skier in an action by one skier against another. The doctrine that defeats most claims against a resort has been switched off by the legislature for this kind of case.

  1. Speed, course, and lookout

    Every skier owes a duty to hold control of speed and course and to keep a proper lookout. The statute then names who owes the primary duty in a collision: the person skiing downhill, meaning whoever is coming down from above, must avoid the people and objects below them. Working out who was above whom is usually the whole fight.

  2. What the resort posted

    Posted information and warnings have to be obeyed, and a trail posted as closed is off limits. The Act presumes a skier saw and understood what was posted at the base area lifts, on the tramways, and on the runs being skied.

  3. Starting up and cutting in

    Setting off from a stop, or dropping onto a trail from the side, comes with a duty to avoid the skiers already coming down it.

  4. Equipment that runs away

    Skis and boards need a strap or comparable device that can stop them if they come off. Cross country skis are carved out of that requirement.

  5. Alcohol, drugs, and leaving

    Riding a lift or using a trail while impaired by alcohol or a controlled substance is barred. So is leaving the area of an injury collision without giving your name and current address to a resort employee or patroller. The statute allows you to leave to get help, provided the information follows.

  6. What the current penalties actually say

    This subsection was rewritten, and reproductions of the Act still circulating carry the old wording, so the detail matters. Under C.R.S. 33-44-109(12)(a), it is a civil infraction carrying a fine of up to $1,000 to violate the closed-trail provision, the impairment provision, or the provision barring a knowing entry onto closed adjoining lands. Under C.R.S. 33-44-109(12)(b), leaving the scene of an injury collision is a petty offense, which is a different classification and sits outside that $1,000 group.

  7. Comparative fault

    Colorado then divides responsibility. C.R.S. 13-21-111 lets a claimant recover only where their own negligence was not as great as that of the party they sued, and it cuts the award by the claimant's share. Reach an even split and the claim is over. That arithmetic is why the first story told about a collision deserves a hard look.

The truth about waivers

What that release on your pass actually does

Every pass, ticket, and rental agreement in Colorado carries release language, and it is drafted to make you put the phone down. It usually does less than it appears to.

Colorado treats a release as a contract, so contract law governs it. The language has to be clear and unambiguous, and it only touches the conduct it actually spells out. A clause written for ordinary negligence handles ordinary negligence and stops there.

What sits beyond its reach is the part worth knowing. Willful and wanton conduct, recklessness, and gross negligence are all outside a release. If a resort knew a hazard was there and left it, skipped an inspection it owed, or ran equipment it knew was defective, the paperwork does not carry the weight the resort is counting on.

Families face a separate rule. C.R.S. 13-22-107(3) allows a parent to release or waive a child's prospective negligence claim on the child's behalf. Subsection (4) then says nothing in the section permits a parent to waive a child's claim for a willful and wanton act or omission, a reckless act or omission, or a grossly negligent act or omission.

Reading the document by yourself and drawing your own conclusion is the one move to avoid. Bring it in and let it be read against what actually happened.

Local Knowledge

The trauma center is in your city, and the courthouse is up the road in Golden

Trauma Care

Lakewood is where the corridor sets people down

St. Anthony Hospital, at 11600 W. 2nd Place, is a Level I trauma center and the headquarters of Flight For Life Colorado. That combination matters for a ski case in a way it does not for most injuries. The serious wrecks on the I-70 ski corridor happen in counties whose own hospitals are built to stabilize and hand off, so a skier with a head or spine injury is often moved to a facility at St. Anthony's level. Up in Summit County, the hospital in Frisco holds a Level III designation. Vail Health in Eagle County holds a Level III as well. The chain runs downhill. The practical consequence is a medical record assembled out of several institutions: a patrol report on the hill, a mountain hospital, a flight or a transport, then the trauma center, then whatever follow-up care takes over. Those pieces arrive separately and in no useful order. Putting them back in sequence is ordinary work, and it is how a serious injury gets proved.

Courthouse

The court is in Golden

Lakewood is in Jefferson County, which sits in the 1st Judicial District along with Gilpin County. District matters are handled at the Jefferson County courts, 100 Jefferson County Parkway, Golden, CO 80401. Your ski claim may well not be filed there. Venue in these cases tends to track the resort and the place the injury happened, so a crash in Summit, Eagle, Grand, or Clear Creek county is usually litigated in that county. Living in Lakewood does not confine your case to Golden, and it does not confine your choice of lawyer to the west side.

The Corridor

The climb starts at the edge of town

Lakewood sits against the foothills where the metro road network hands off to the mountain one. US-6 runs west out of the city toward Golden and the I-70 on-ramp, and C-470 comes up from the south to meet the same interchange. Clear Creek County is the first county the highway climbs into, and it holds Loveland Ski Area at the east portal of the Eisenhower Tunnel, at Exit 216, along with Echo Mountain west of Evergreen. Being close to the on-ramp mostly means Lakewood skiers drive up and back inside a day. That habit produces one recurring problem in the file, and it has nothing to do with the road. A person who skis, drives home, and goes to bed sore often does not seek care until the next day or later, and the gap between the crash and the first medical record becomes something an insurer talks about. The gap is explainable. It is easier to explain early.

Compensation

What an injured Lakewood skier may be able to recover

Once negligence is on the table, Colorado sorts the harm into losses with a paper trail and losses without one.

Economic damages

  • Getting off the mountain, including air transport where it was needed
  • Emergency care, surgery, and specialist treatment through discharge
  • Wages lost during recovery, and earning capacity lost after it
  • Physical and occupational rehabilitation
  • Future treatment, including a life care plan where the injury warrants one
  • Out-of-pocket expenses traceable to the injury

Non-economic damages

  • Pain and suffering from orthopedic, spinal, or head trauma
  • Permanent impairment, or physical function that does not come back
  • Loss of enjoyment of life, the sport itself included
  • In a death case, funeral expenses and loss of companionship

The operator cap, and the hole in the middle of it

What you can recover from a ski area operator is limited by statute. C.R.S. 33-44-113 sets a total ceiling of $1,000,000 present value, holds any derivative claim by another claimant to $250,000, and holds non-economic loss to $250,000. Four features inside that section change how it lands.

  • The statute excludes injuries occurring to a passenger while riding a passenger tramway from the cap. That single clause is why a chairlift case gets its own analysis from the first meeting.
  • The cap binds claims against an operator. A claim against the skier who hit you is not capped by it.
  • On good cause shown, a court may award beyond the ceiling, limited to excess future lost earnings or excess future medical and health care costs, where applying the limit would be unfair.
  • The limits, and the exceptions to them, are not disclosed to the jury.
Deadlines and fault

Two years, from one of two different statutes

The deadline is 2 years on either route. Which statute hands you those 2 years depends on who you are suing, and the distinction is worth getting right.

Sue a ski area operator or its employees for damages caused by the maintenance, supervision, or operation of a passenger tramway or a ski area, and C.R.S. 33-44-111 governs. It requires the action to be brought within 2 years after the claim for relief arises. Sue the skier who hit you and that section does not apply at all, because it is written for operators. The 2 years then comes from C.R.S. 13-80-102(1)(a), Colorado's general limitation for tort actions.

When the clock starts is a separate question from how long it runs. C.R.S. 13-80-108(1) provides that a cause of action accrues on the date both the injury and its cause are known or should have been known through reasonable diligence. In most ski cases that is the day of the crash. In some it is not, and head and spine injuries that reveal themselves slowly are the reason the rule reads the way it does. Waiting to see how bad the damage turns out to be does not buy extra time.

Fault runs on its own track. Under C.R.S. 13-21-111 you recover while your negligence stays below the other party's, with the award reduced by your percentage, and recovery disappears once your share reaches half. Insurers understand that threshold well. The version of events that keeps a claimant under it tends to be built early, from witnesses and records, not from argument later.

Why CGH

Why injured Lakewood skiers choose CGH Injury Lawyers

Trial-Ready

Built for trial.

A file that plainly could be tried is valued differently from one that could not.

The Statute

Ski claims run on their own rules.

Inherent risk, statutory duties, the operator cap, and release language do not behave the way standard negligence does.

Fast Evidence Action

The proof has a shelf life.

Lift maintenance logs, grooming records, incident reports, patrol notes, and the condition of signage all change or disappear. Preservation letters need to go out early.

No Win, No Fee

No fee unless we win.

The consultation costs nothing, and our fee comes from a recovery. How case costs are handled is set out in the fee agreement before you sign anything.

Local Reach

We come to you.

Lakewood is a short run into Denver on 6th Avenue, and if getting to us is hard right now, we make the trip instead.

How it works

How we handle a Lakewood ski accident case

  1. Free consultation

    Tell us what happened and get a straight answer about whether there is a claim, including when the answer is that there is not.

  2. Preservation

    Written demands go to the resort for lift logs, grooming records, incident reports, and video before retention windows close.

  3. Investigation

    We find witnesses, pull patrol and clinic records, and where the mechanism of injury is disputed, bring in an accident reconstruction expert.

  4. Medical picture

    Records are collected from every facility in the chain, and in serious cases treating physicians and life care planners set out what recovery actually takes.

  5. Demand and negotiation

    The claim goes out backed by evidence.

  6. Litigation where needed

    If the offer does not match the harm, we file in the proper venue and work the case up for trial.

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Questions

Lakewood ski accident, frequently asked questions

I was hurt at Loveland or Copper but treated at St. Anthony. Does that complicate anything?

It is common and it is manageable. A ski injury often generates records at a patrol shack, a mountain hospital, a transport service, and a trauma center, and those records have to be gathered from each one separately. Where you were treated does not change which law applies or where the case can be filed.

Which court would my case be in?

Usually the county where the resort is. Lakewood is in Jefferson County, part of the 1st Judicial District with Gilpin County, and district matters are heard at 100 Jefferson County Parkway in Golden. A ski claim generally follows the site of the injury, so a Summit or Clear Creek county crash is typically litigated there.

Does the release on my season pass end this?

Not by itself. Colorado reads a release as a contract, so it covers the conduct it clearly names and no more. It does not reach willful and wanton conduct, recklessness, or gross negligence, and under C.R.S. 13-22-107(4) a parent cannot waive a child's claim in any of those categories.

Another skier hit me. Isn't that just part of skiing?

Not between skiers. C.R.S. 33-44-109(1) states a skier-skier collision is neither an inherent risk nor a risk assumed in an action by one skier against another, and the statute puts the primary duty to avoid the collision on the person skiing downhill, the skier arriving from above.

I got hurt loading a chairlift. Is that different?

It can be. C.R.S. 33-44-103 says nothing in the inherent-risk definition limits an operator's liability for injury caused by the use or operation of ski lifts, and C.R.S. 33-44-113 leaves injuries to a passenger riding a passenger tramway outside the damages cap. Lift cases get looked at on their own footing.

How long do I have?

2 years. Against a ski area operator or its employees, C.R.S. 33-44-111 supplies the deadline. Against another skier, C.R.S. 13-80-102(1)(a) does. The period generally begins when both the injury and its cause were known or reasonably should have been known.

Is there a limit on what I can recover?

Against a ski area operator, yes. C.R.S. 33-44-113 sets $1,000,000 present value overall, with $250,000 on derivative claims and on non-economic loss. Passenger tramway injuries fall outside it, it does not apply to a claim against another skier, and a court may go past it on good cause shown for excess future earnings or future medical costs.

Does Colorado make me wear a helmet?

The Ski Safety Act sets no helmet requirement at any age. Wearing one is a good idea. It is not what decides whether you have a claim.

I skied home and didn't go to a doctor until Monday. Is that a problem?

It is a question you will be asked, and it has an answer. Delayed presentation is normal after a fall, particularly with head and spine injuries. What helps is documenting the symptoms as they appeared and getting evaluated as soon as you can.

What if some of this was my fault?

You can still recover while your share of the negligence stays below the other party's, with your award reduced by your percentage. At half or more, C.R.S. 13-21-111 ends recovery, which is why an early assignment of blame is worth challenging.

What does this cost me?

Nothing to start. The consultation is free, and our fee is taken only out of a recovery. The fee agreement sets out how case costs are handled before you commit to anything.

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