DEADLY SKIER COLLISION AT BRECKENRIDGE

HENRICHS v. WILLS

Counsel for Plaintiffs: Chalat Hatten Law Offices, P.C.
Court:UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO,
Civil Action No. # 02_N_2151 (MJW)
Date of Settlement:

Facts:

Robert Wills, 30, of Plymouth, England collided with Richard Henrichs, a 56-year-old from Naperville, Illinois who was skiing with his son Ryan Henrichs. Richard Henrichs suffered a severe concussion, several broken ribs, internal injuries and a broken hip, the severity of his injuries ultimately resulting in his death.

Wills collided into Henrichs on the beginner Falcon Access ski run at Breckenridge, knocking him out of his bindings and crashing into a lone tree in the middle of the slope. Wills initially was held by the Summit County Sheriff's Department on suspicion of assault and reckless endangerment, and those charges were modified to criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter after Henrichs died at Swedish Medical Center.

Though the district attorney's office, after several days of investigation, released Wills without charges, the case received international attention as the possibility of manslaughter charges arising from conduct on a ski slope were considered.

The widow, Sandra Henrichs, filed a wrongful death suit against Wills. Lift tickets held the key to winning the case. The computer records were subpeoned from Breckenridge Ski Resort, which showed when and for which lifts Wills' bar-coded lift ticket had been scanned. These records demonstrated that Wills and Heinrichs boarded the lift simultaneously, yet a companion skiing with Wills testified that upon unloading from the lift, the defendant and his party took a ten minute coffee break. The argument that Wills must have been skiing extremely fast in order to catch up with Heinrichs, who made no stops, persuaded the defendant to settle the case for a confidential amount.