Jury Awards $12.4 Million After Teenager Falls 30 Feet From Chairlift at Crested Butte

In March 2022, Annalea 'Annie' Miller, then 16 years old, was loading onto the Paradise Express chairlift at Crested Butte Mountain Resort in Colorado when she slipped during boarding. Her father, riding beside her, tried to hold her but could not prevent her fall. She dropped approximately 30 feet to the ground below and fractured her C-7 vertebra, sustaining a spinal cord injury that left her permanently unable to walk.

Before the case reached a jury, the Colorado Supreme Court had to resolve a threshold legal question: could the resort's lift-ticket liability waiver block Annie's claim entirely? In 2024, the court held it could not. Waivers printed on ski lift tickets do not immunize resorts from liability when they violate mandatory safety statutes, the court ruled, clearing the way for the negligence claim to go forward.

At trial in Broomfield County District Court, Brian Aleinikoff and Bruce Braley of Leventhal Puga Braley argued that resort staff failed to stop the lift when Annie was clearly struggling to board, a violation of American National Standards Institute safety standards that Colorado ski areas are required to follow. The jury agreed, finding the resort negligent per se -- the first verdict in Colorado against a ski resort on that theory.

The jury initially apportioned 75 percent of fault to the resort and 25 percent to the Miller side, producing a gross award of $21.1 million. After applying the comparative-fault reduction, the figure dropped to $15.8 million. Colorado's statutory cap on noneconomic damages then trimmed the noneconomic portion, bringing the final judgment to $12.4 million.

The breakdown before caps included $10.55 million for future economic losses, $5.275 million for physical impairment, and $5.275 million for noneconomic losses. The Colorado Trial Lawyers Association named the case its 2024 Case of the Year, presented in May 2025.