Summary judgment for defendant is affirmed. Plaintiff injured her knee while skiing. She called for the ski patrol, which came, placed her in a rescue toboggan, and started skiing her down the hill to get medical care. The ski patrolman handling the toboggan fell, and the toboggan went unguided down the hill until it hit a tree. The primary assumption of the risk bars liability for injury sustained in a risky sport like skiing even when it results from the defendant’s ordinary negligence. There was no evidence to show that the ski patrolman was grossly negligent in falling while taking the toboggan downhill, even if the fall was not precipitated by a snowboarder clipping his ski as he maintained.
California Court of Appeal, Third District (Hull, J.); September 4, 2018 (published September 26, 2018); 27 Cal. App. 5th 715