Kelowna ski patroller injured in 2014 elevate crash continues authorized battle for compensation | iNFOnews
The cable derailed on the chairlift at Crystal Mountain Resort injuring 4 individuals, 2 critically on Saturday, Mar. 1, 2014.
Picture Credit score: Contributed/Zack Tereposky
October 26, 2022 – 7:00 AM
A Kelowna man is constant with authorized motion greater than eight years after a ski elevate derailed, dropping him to the bottom at West Kelowna’s Crystal Mountain Resort.
Former volunteer ski patroller Kevin Gourlay has filed one more civil case in opposition to Crystal Mountain Resort, after the resort was lately profitable in interesting an earlier resolution with the Employees’ Compensation Attraction Tribunal.
Initially Gourlay had been thought-about an unpaid volunteer by WorkSafeBC, however the Tribunal’s resolution overturned this and dominated that Gourlay needs to be classed as a employee as a substitute.
“Given (Gourlay’s) position within the operation of Crystal Mountain’s enterprise, my conclusion that (his) main motive in offering ski patrol companies at Crystal Mountain was to not profit any charitable, civic, or humanitarian goals of Crystal Mountain, my discovering that there was an settlement between (Gourlay) and Crystal Mountain below which he agreed to work a minimal quantity ski patrol shits and Crystal Mountain agreed to make these shifts obtainable to him,” the Employees’ Compensation Tribunal resolution reads. “My discovering that he acquired one thing of substance from Crystal Mountain in lieu of financial compensation for his companies, I conclude that (Gourlay) was not a volunteer.”
On Oct. 20 Gourlay filed once more within the B.C. Supreme Court docket asking to quash the latest Employees’ Compensation Attraction Tribunal resolution.
The standards on whether or not Gourlay needs to be categorized as a volunteer or a employee has set the case again a number of years, though it isn’t instantly clear how this impacts Gourlay’s battle for compensation following the ski elevate incident.
In 2014, the previous volunteer ski patroller was certainly one of 4 individuals concerned in an incident when an empty elevate chair crashed right into a ski elevate tower derailing two different chairs and sending the occupants falling seven metres to the bottom.
Gourlay was rushed to hospital in vital situation.
Crystal Mountain Resort closed following the incident and has but to reopen.
In 2016 Gourlay took authorized motion in opposition to Crystal Mountain Resort however the case grew to become lengthy and complicated and ended within the B.C. Court docket of Attraction.
In line with court docket paperwork, Gourlay alongside together with his spouse Meagan Harvey, who was additionally concerned within the chairlift crash, together with one other plaintiff, entered into an settlement with Crystal Mountain in January 2018.
The settlement said that Crystal Mountain would pay damages, the quantity of which might be determined by a choose, following a trial scheduled for August 2019.
The deal said that the trial wouldn’t talk about the problem of legal responsibility simply how a lot cash needs to be paid out.
Nonetheless, simply earlier than the trial was scheduled to get underway, Crystal Mountain learnt that WorkSafeBC had denied Gourlay’s declare a number of years earlier on the premise he was a volunteer on the mountain and never paid worker.
Crystal Mountain promptly had the trial adjourned.
The choice from Crystal Mountain to adjourn the trial and argue that Gourlay needs to be handled as a employee quashed years of authorized wrangling.
In 2020 Gourlay filed once more within the Supreme Court docket arguing Crystal Mountain breached an earlier settlement to pay damages by adjourning the trial.
Earlier court docket paperwork stated Gourlay was a volunteer ski patroller and authorized industrial diver on the time of the incident. The court docket paperwork say Gourlay injured his ft, ankles, left calf and proper knee, in addition to different accidents and he suffers ongoing power ache.
In July 2020 Harvey instructed iNFOnews.ca she settled the case out of court docket in September 2019.
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