## Facts

- Gregory D. Hanks took his children and another child to a commercial snowtubing facility open to the general public for a fee, subject only to minimal age/height requirements.
- As a nonnegotiable prerequisite to participation, patrons were required to sign a standardized “Waiver, Defense, Indemnity and Hold Harmless Agreement, and Release of Liability.”
- Hanks read and signed the agreement for himself and on behalf of the children.
- While descending the man-made snowtubing run, Hanks’s right foot became caught between his tube and the run’s bank, causing severe injuries requiring multiple surgeries.
- Hanks sued, alleging negligent operation and maintenance of the run, including unsafe tube sizing, inadequate staff training/supervision, improper grooming and landscaping, hazardous end-of-run conditions, and failure to warn or pad sidewalls.
- The agreement expressly stated that snowtubing is dangerous, that falls and collisions occur, and that the signer assumed all risks, including injuries resulting from the facility’s negligence; it also purported to release the facility from liability for negligence and required indemnification for claims including those based on the facility’s negligence.

## Issues

1. Whether a standardized, mandatory exculpatory agreement releasing a commercial recreational operator open to the public for a fee from liability for its own future negligence is enforceable or void as against public policy.
2. Whether the clarity and repeated reference to “negligence” in the agreement required enforcement, given prior Connecticut precedent construing similar language narrowly.

## Decision

- The Connecticut Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s summary judgment for the defendants.
- The Court held the exculpatory agreement unenforceable as a matter of public policy, even though it clearly purported to release the defendants from liability for their own negligence.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings on Hanks’s negligence claims without the waiver as a bar.

## Legal Principles

- Contract freedom yields where enforcement would violate public policy; exculpatory provisions may be invalid when they materially conflict with tort-law aims of compensation and encouraging reasonable care.
- A commercial operator that invites the general public to participate in a potentially hazardous recreational activity for a fee is expected to exercise reasonable care to make the activity as safe as reasonably possible.
- A nonnegotiable, standardized consumer waiver required as a condition of access to a fee-based public recreational activity may be treated as an adhesion contract, supporting heightened scrutiny of risk-shifting terms.
- Even clear, unambiguous language releasing a party from its own future negligence can be void when it shifts responsibility away from the party best positioned to prevent harm and weakens deterrence.
- Prior precedent limiting enforcement on interpretive grounds does not foreclose invalidation on public-policy grounds where a waiver plainly covers negligence.

## Conclusion

The court held that a mandatory, standard-form waiver requiring members of the public to relinquish prospective negligence claims against a fee-based recreational facility is void as against public policy, and it allowed the plaintiff’s negligence action to proceed despite explicit negligence-release language.


Hanks v. Powder Ridge Rest. Corp., 276 Conn. 314, 885 A.2d 734 (Conn. 2005)