Vail Resorts Sued Over Alleged Failure to Disclose ‘Disastrous’ Conditions During Park City Mountain Resort Ski Patrol Strike

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A proposed class action lawsuit alleges the owner of Utah’s Park City Mountain Resort failed to notify customers of a 13-day ski patroller strike, surprising guests with closed trails and long lift lines during the 2024-2025 holiday season.

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The 16-page lawsuit was filed against Vail Resorts by an Illinois man who says he knew nothing of the ski patrol strike until he arrived at the slopes on December 28 for a ski trip with his family. According to the case, the plaintiff and his family endured hours-long lines and skied fewer than 10 runs throughout their weeklong, $15,000 vacation due to operational disruptions caused by the strike.

The case accuses Vail Resorts of deceitfully selling thousands of lift tickets while representing that mountain operations were running as usual during the strike—which commenced on December 27 and ended on January 8 with a victory for the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association. In reality, the suit contends, less than 20 percent of the mountain was open for most of the high-traffic holiday season as 200 union members picketed for higher wages and better benefits.

“And after waiting several hours to get on a ski lift, again because of the lack of runs and ski lifts open, skiers were only allowed to ski for a mere few minutes before being forced to get back into a lift line with thousands of skiers waiting,” the case says.

After roughly 10 months of stalled negotiations and a nearly two-week strike, the union and Vail Resorts ratified a new labor contract with a base pay increase of $2 an hour and raises for senior ski patrollers, the Associated Press reports.

Per the filing, Vail Resorts knew or should have known that a ski patrol strike would be underway as early as December 16, when the union began to file complaints with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that the defendant was negotiating the labor dispute in bad faith. Despite this knowledge, Vail Resorts did nothing to alert the public until posting a January 4 update on its website informing guests to “expect some operational impacts from the ongoing patrol strike,” the complaint relays.

“Because Vail Resorts failed to disclose the strike and resultant conditions on Park City’s operations, what was expected to be a dream vacation for thousands of families, at the expense of tens of thousands of dollars per family, quickly turned into a colossal nightmare,” the case contends.

The Vail Resorts lawsuit looks to represent anyone who purchased a lift ticket from Vail Resorts to ski at Park City Mountain Resort to be used from December 27, 2024 through January 8, 2025.

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