Although a few releasable bindings have
been marketed, they generally are not available in equipment
stores.
During the trial, the Sviteks' attorney introduced
evidence that nonreleasable bindings increase the risk
of death if a snowboarder falls into a well of deep
snow around a tree trunk. Unable to kick off the board,
a rider can become trapped and die from lack of oxygen.
The Sviteks said they knew they were breaking ground
with a lawsuit. A search of legal databases shows that
a product-liability case against a manufacturer of snowboard
bindings had never gone to a jury in the United States.
Joseph Chaiken of Philadelphia, the attorney for the
Sviteks, said Friday after the verdict that challenging
the standards of a big sports industry was always "a
tough case."
Portland lawyer Brad Stanford, who represented Nidecker,
said his client thinks the verdict "reaffirms that
these nonreleasable bindings are safe."
"Given the industrywide implications of a negative
verdict," Stanford said, "we are very happy."
The accident
Kate Svitek was off-duty from her job at Mount Bachelor
Ski Resort when she went snowboarding with friends on
her Nidecker Megalight II board with Pro 800 "bear
trap" bindings.
On their fifth run, Svitek disappeared. The resort
launched its largest-ever search to look for the outdoorsy,
athletic woman who had summited Mount Rainier the previous
September. Frank and Ellen Svitek flew to Bend for the
vigil.
She was not found for three weeks. The medical examiner
determined that when Svitek fell into the tree well,
the deep, light, airy snow closed in around and on top
of her, keeping her from moving.
The Sviteks established a memorial foundation that
raises scholarship money to send youngsters on wilderness
adventures. Then they researched snowboard deaths.
Since 1993, at least 12 snowboarders have died in tree
wells. In January, an 18-year-old man snowboarding with
his father at Northstar-at-Tahoe in California fell
into a tree well and suffocated.
The Sviteks think that if their daughter's snowboard
had releasable bindings, she could have kicked off the
board and escaped. Despite the odds against victory
in court, the Sviteks sued for $15 million because they
say Nidecker should have put releasable bindings on
the market.
"This may sound corny," Ellen Svitek said,
"but I didn't want Kate to die in vain."
The trial
For two weeks, the couple sat in Courtroom 734 of the
Multnomah County Courthouse wearing buttons with their
daughter's smiling face.
Chaiken, their attorney, brought in two developers
of releasable bindings, who said they had difficulty
persuading the industry to switch.
Stanford flew in Henri Nidecker, president of the 100-year-old
family-owned manufacturer. Speaking in French through
an interpreter, Nidecker said that for a time in the
early 1990s, he marketed a releasable snowboard binding
but dropped it on poor sales.
No studies have compared the injury and death rates
of releasable and nonreleasable snowboard bindings,
both sides agreed.
But in his closing argument Thursday, Chaiken argued
that the belief that nonreleasable bindings are safer
is an industry myth, not unlike Big Tobacco's early
advertising that cigarettes were a health aid.
Stanford countered that deaths in tree wells are caused
not by equipment but by the way a snowboarder comes
to rest. Skiers die in tree wells, too, he said: "If
releasable bindings were the answer, they were be no
deaths of skiers in tree wells."
The jury deliberated for 41/2 hours Thursday afternoon
and Friday morning and brought in a verdict just before
noon. On the two questions about Nidecker's liability,
the jury voted 10-2 and 9-3.
After Judge Richard C. Baldwin read the decision, he
announced that some jurors wanted to talk. As Chaiken
and the Sviteks left the courtroom, they met Army Col.
Earnest Smith and two other jurors in the hall.
Smith said many jurors wanted to vote for the Sviteks
to send a message to the industry. But others were not
convinced of the equipment's dangers.
"I was with you all the way," he told them.
Later, the presiding juror, electrician Howard Prink,
said from his Gresham home that the facts and the law
in the case did not allow the jury to send the message
Smith described.
"It would be like punishing one company for what
the industry does as a whole," Prink said.
Prink said the case interested him because his 16-year-old
daughter is on her school's snowboarding team, and she
wears nonreleasable bindings. He said he would share
at least one lesson from the trial with her.
"I told myself that when this is over, I would
sit down and have a talk with my daughter and make sure
she is aware of tree wells," he said.
Anne Saker: 503-294-7656; annesaker@news.oregonian.com
©2005 The Oregonian
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