Industry News
What the Epic Pass Waiver Lawsuit Is Really About
Every skier and rider knows the moment. You’re purchasing your pass online, clicking through the liability waiver, and moving on, because the legal details are not why you’re here. It’s a seasonal reflex: click, agree, ride. John Litterer, a snowboarder from Texas, did the same thing, a seemingly routine action now at the center of an Epic Pass waiver lawsuit before the Colorado Supreme Court.
In December 2020, Litterer was snowboarding down Wirepatch trail at Breckenridge Ski Resort. Turning left onto Peak 8 Road — a catwalk approved for snowmobile traffic — he was struck and injured by resort employee Dwight McClure, who was operating a snowmobile uphill around a blind corner. Court records show McClure was traveling under the trail’s posted speed limit and attempted to bring the snowmobile to a stop before impact. That season’s Epic Pass waiver specifically named collisions with snowmobiles as an assumed risk.
Litterer recovered and, as most skiers and riders would, wanted to be back on the mountain. In May 2022, nearly eighteen months after the collision, he filed a personal injury lawsuit against McClure and Vail Summit Resorts Inc. Then, in November of that same year, with the lawsuit still active, he purchased another Epic Pass and clicked through another waiver.
The agreement came with an explicit warning: “PLEASE READ CAREFULLY… THIS IS A RELEASE OF LIABILITY… INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO SUE.” It went further, releasing “any and all claims… including those… resulting from anything which has happened up to now.” Litterer did not intend to drop his lawsuit. He just wanted to snowboard.
How the Epic Pass Waiver Lawsuit Reached Colorado’s Highest Court
Vail Resorts sees it differently. In filings before the Colorado Supreme Court, its attorneys argued that Litterer knew the nature of his injuries, knew he had an active lawsuit, and had the release in front of him. “That release was clear as a bell,” they wrote. It’s not an argument you can easily dismiss. Litterer wasn’t an uninformed consumer—he was a plaintiff in active litigation—but the agreement he accepted is the same one every Epic Pass holder agrees to, embedded in the same frictionless checkout flow as a routine purchase.
Contract law rests on a deceptively simple idea: both parties must actually agree to the same terms. When a liability waiver is challenged, courts look closely at its language, context, and clarity to determine whether that agreement — a true meeting of the minds — actually occurred.
In skiing and snowboarding, some level of legal protection is not only expected but necessary. The alpine environment carries real, inherent risk, and shielding operators from frivolous claims is reasonable. What’s being tested here is something narrower and more consequential: whether a broadly worded waiver can retroactively extinguish an active lawsuit — one already filed and actively being litigated — without the signer clearly understanding that outcome.
Lower courts sided with Vail Resorts. The Colorado Court of Appeals was blunt: “The 2022 online waiver bars Litterer’s claims.” In its view, the language he accepted — releasing “any and all claims. . . including anything which has happened up to now”— was sufficiently clear to extinguish even an active lawsuit. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed to review that conclusion.
Miller v. Crested Butte: The Precedent That Changes Everything
This case doesn’t arrive in isolation. In 2022, the Colorado Supreme Court issued a ruling in Miller v. Crested Butte that sent what attorney Joseph Bloch described as “a seismic shockwave” through ski law in the state. 16-year-old Annie Miller was boarding a chairlift at Crested Butte Mountain Resort when she was unable to seat herself properly. Her father called for the lift to stop. It didn’t. She fell roughly 30 feet and was paralyzed.
- Related: Vail Resorts Ordered to Pay $12.4 Million to Woman Paralyzed Following Chairlift Fall at Crested Butte, CO
The resort pointed to its liability waiver. The court rejected that defense, ruling that a private agreement cannot waive a ski area’s obligation to comply with statutory safety duties. A jury later awarded the Miller family $12.4 million. You can sign away certain rights tied to inherent risk. You cannot sign away a resort’s obligation to follow the law.
Miller v. Crested Butte clarified the outer boundary of ski waivers. Litterer’s case tests what happens inside it. His attorneys argue that the snowmobile operator violated the Colorado Snowmobile Safety Statute by riding carelessly around a blind corner. If that conduct rises to a statutory breach, the waiver may not apply, regardless of what Litterer clicked.
The April 2026 Hearing
On April 16, 2026, the case reached the state’s highest court as part of its “Courts in the Community” program. Oral arguments were held before an audience at Holyoke High School. Litterer’s attorney, Trent Ongert, argued that a ski area should not be able to rely on generic release language embedded in a standard pass purchase to evade accountability for statutory safety obligations. The justices were not entirely persuaded.
“We’re not a policymaking branch of government,” noted Justice Brian D. Boatright, pointing out that Litterer signed the second waiver after initiating his lawsuit. Chief Justice Monica M. Márquez raised a similar concern, suggesting the argument might be better directed to the legislature. Vail Resorts’ attorney, Michael Hofmann, pressed the broader implication: allowing adults to disregard clear contractual language—even after the fact—could destabilize contract law well beyond the ski industry.
What an Epic Pass Waiver Lawsuit Decision Could Mean for Skiers
A written decision from the Colorado Supreme Court is expected within the next two months. The Epic Pass serves as the gateway to some of the most sought-after terrain in North America. Its waiver is one of the most widely accepted legal agreements in outdoor recreation.
If the court sides with Litterer, it could significantly narrow the scope of those waivers, particularly when applied to ongoing legal claims. If it sides with Vail Resorts, the message will be equally clear: a routine click carries legal weight, even when its consequences aren’t fully considered.
For skiers and riders, the case reduces to a question neither side can fully dismiss. Vail Resorts is right that the language was explicit, the warning was prominent, and Litterer was no ordinary consumer clicking through fine print — he was an active plaintiff. Litterer’s attorneys are right that millions of pass holders treat that same checkout screen as a transaction, not a legal proceeding. The Colorado Supreme Court will decide whose version of that moment carries the law.
Seems like the argument should be they’re negligible for not having a stop sign for the snowmobile there at a trail crossing as that could cause SAFETY issues when they plow into someone.