## Facts

- Wilkie Cheong and Drew R. Antablin, longtime friends and experienced skiers, skied together at Alpine Meadows in Placer County, California.
- While skiing downhill on April 11, 1991, they collided, and Cheong suffered severe leg injuries (shattered tibia and fibula).
- Antablin stated he was skiing faster than he felt comfortable given conditions and turned right to slow down and regain control; the collision was accidental.
- Antablin denied intentional or reckless conduct.
- Cheong testified he did not believe Antablin’s skiing was reckless.
- Cheong sued Antablin for general negligence, alleging Antablin skied too fast, lost control, and caused the collision.
- Antablin asserted primary assumption of risk; the trial court granted summary judgment, the Court of Appeal affirmed, and the Supreme Court of California affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether, under the primary assumption of risk doctrine governing active sports, a recreational skier may sue a fellow skier for ordinary negligence arising from an on-slope collision.
2. Whether a county skier-responsibility ordinance requiring skiers to ski safely and under control creates or modifies a duty of care sufficient to support a negligence claim between co-participants.
3. Whether Evidence Code § 669 (negligence per se) can apply based on an alleged ordinance violation to impose civil liability despite primary assumption of risk.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of California affirmed summary judgment for Antablin.
- The court held that downhill skiing is an active sport in which collisions between skiers are inherent risks.
- As between recreational co-participants, a skier owes only a limited duty: not to injure others intentionally and not to act recklessly outside the ordinary range of the sport; there is no duty to avoid ordinary negligence as to inherent risks.
- The county ordinance did not create additional tort duties between skiers and, read as a whole, recognized that participants assume inherent risks including collisions.
- Evidence Code § 669 did not aid Cheong because he did not establish that he fell within the class of persons the ordinance was intended to protect; the court therefore did not decide broader questions about § 669’s interaction with primary assumption of risk.
- The undisputed evidence showed no triable issue of reckless or intentional misconduct; the accident fell within risks inherent in skiing.

## Legal Principles

- Primary assumption of risk in active sports operates as a duty limitation: co-participants generally have no duty to protect one another from risks inherent in the sport.
- In recreational sports, liability between participants is limited to intentional injury or reckless conduct that is totally outside the ordinary activity involved in the sport.
- Collisions between downhill skiers are inherent risks of skiing for primary assumption of risk purposes.
- A safety ordinance does not create civil liability between sport co-participants absent clear intent to impose such duties; an ordinance that recognizes assumed inherent risks supports, rather than displaces, the common-law duty rule.
- Negligence per se under Evidence Code § 669 requires satisfaction of its statutory elements, including that the plaintiff is within the class of persons the enactment was designed to protect; failure to meet those elements defeats reliance on § 669.

## Conclusion

The court held that an injured skier could not recover for a collision caused at most by ordinary negligence because such collisions are inherent in downhill skiing; absent evidence of reckless or intentional conduct, and without a qualifying negligence-per-se showing under the ordinance, the defendant skier owed no actionable duty and summary judgment was proper.


Cheong v. Antablin, 16 Cal. 4th 1063 (1997)