In August, the courts go on summer schedule and a lot of lawyers head to the beach. It’s been an awfully hot summer, so when my good friend Dan asked my wife and I to spend a long weekend with him at his vacation home in Jackson Hole, Wyo., it seemed like a better alternative.
Once in Wyoming, I thought I’d visit Yellowstone National Park. In the past, whenever I was in mountain country, I spent my time snow shoeing, digging snow caves and summiting peaks – stuff I considered very macho, and at least marginally dangerous. Growing up, I had seen pictures of cars lined up on paved roads at national parks amid bears and other animals – kind of zoo-like. That didn’t seem exciting and certainly not very dangerous (presuming one had the sense to keep their windows up).
Dan, however, gave me several books about the park, and the one he most recommended was “Death in Yellowstone.” That book told me all about various ways to die while on vacation. There was the typical car crash, which in Yellowstone could be made more glamorous by running into a bison. In fact, in Yellowstone you can even meet an untimely end by driving a snowmobile off a ridge. Of course, there is the traditional fall into a waterfall, or the ever popular, being eaten by a bear.
However, in addition to the more mundane deaths, like being trampled by a moose, Yellowstone offers you the opportunity to be boiled by a geyser, mudpot, steamvent or hot spring. It seems that ever since the 1800s, for reasons that escape good explanations, poor souls have been parboiling themselves in the fiery waters of the great Yellowstone basin. I had previously labored under the misconception that the point behind a trip to one of our national parks was fun and relaxation. I now know these trips offer huge opportunities for business development. In fact, while I was walking on one of the wooden walkways, above the hot pools, I was shocked to find a couple of cards belonging to my longtime personal injury lawyer friend, Dick Slickster, stapled on the railings above the geothermal wonders.
It’s not only the unwary tourist who has provided lawyers with injury cases. Some time ago, a 20-year-old park concession employee was taking a nighttime excursion in the park with a couple of her friends and stepped into a 10-foot-deep pool of boiling water. She died and her friends were burned. They filed a lawsuit. Similar suits have been filed by others, including the parents of Andy Hesht, a nine-year-old who also died in a Yellowstone pool. One of the more famous dips into one of Yellowstone’s bubbling cauldrons, occurred when a brave fellow entered a thermal spring (with a temperature over 200 degrees), to save his friend’s dog. When onlookers cautioned him against the folly, he turned around and yelled “Like hell I won’t” and dove in head first. Neither he, nor the dog, survived.
However, Yellowstone is not our only national “attractive nuisance.” Just this week, an injury suit was filed by the family of a fellow who was hiking in Olympic National Park.
The suit claims that a mountain goat, alleged to be a “particularly dangerous animal,” tracked the hiker for approximately one mile. The goat gored him, severed his femoral artery, and stood over him for 30 minutes as he bled to death. The theory of the $10 million wrongful death and personal injury claims appear to be that the park knew this animal was aggressive and failed to protect the visitor. It sounds like a premises liability suit where liability hinges on the landlord or owners’ prior knowledge of problems on the property – in this case, a problem mountain goat.
Of course, from the goat’s point of view, perhaps the hiker was invading his home, justifying the use of deadly force. I guess your point of view is important. However, don’t think that the national parks provide only opportunity for injury lawyers. There’s also plenty of work for commercial lawyers. Some time ago, an enterprising businessman purchased 3,000 acres directly across from Yellowstone National Park, along with a bunch of bison, bears, and wolves. He named his new venture “Yello-Stone Natural Park”. The national park sued, claiming “Yello-Stone” was confusingly similar to its 146 year old trademark “Yellowstone.” Experts testified. The government lost.
Then there’s the recent suit brought by the Park County Stock Growers’ Association. They don’t like a government agency’s ruling that allows bison to migrate north to Montana, during tough times like the winter of 2010-2011. A counteraction to allow the migration – and thus avoid the slaughtering of the buffalo – was filed by the Bear Creek Council. (I love that group because we seldom have litigants with names like that in the courts I frequent.) Lawyers have also fought over who should get first dibs on killing the excess elk population – hunters or wolves. Yes, there is a lot of work for lawyers at our national parks – they’re not just for tourists anymore.
Having concluded our Yellowstone jaunt, we returned to Jackson hole for a farewell dinner with several of Dan’s friends. One, who owned a famed Boston restaurant, cooked us a multi-course dinner, served on the second story of a glass room, cantilevered on the side of a mountain. Just as we were finishing dessert, the 10-year-old son of a wine importer from San Francisco came crying and howling up the stairs from the glass room below the dining room. To the youngster’s horror, a moose has just stared at him from the other side of the glass wall. That never happens at dinner parties I give.
© 2011 Under Analysis LLC Mark Levison is a member of the law firm Lathrop & Gage LLP. You can reach Under Analysis LLC in care of this paper or by e-mail at comments@levisongroup.com.