Skiers said they spent thousands of dollars to visit Park City Mountain and Vail Resorts didn't disclose the nearly two-week strike that was recently settled or its impacts.
The primary plaintiff, Christopher Bisaillon from Illinois, is suing on behalf of anyone who purchased a Park City Mountain lift ticket from Dec. 27 through Jan. 8, during the ski patrol strike.
That could be thousands of skiers and riders, according to the lawsuit.
Bisaillon alleges skiers didn’t get the experience they paid for, claiming it’s normal to spend $10,000 to $20,000 on a full ski trip to Park City.
Bisaillon says in the lawsuit he spent $15,000 and skied fewer than 10 runs during a week-long Christmas vacation. He says he learned about the strike after he arrived, a day after it began.
The lawsuit claims that less than 20% of the mountain was open during the 13-day strike, which resulted in lift lines that lasted for up to 3 hours at times.
Bisaillon claims he and his family skied to lifts advertising 30-minute wait times on Park City Mountain’s digital trail maps that in reality had hour-long lines.
The lawsuit says Vail Resorts should have warned guests about strike impacts and that the company should have seen it coming as early as Dec. 16. That’s when the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association began filing federal unfair labor practice charges against the company over delays in contract negotiations, which began in April 2024.
The 204 unionized ski patrollers and mountain safety staff voted to authorize a strike Dec. 14 and walked out two weeks later, leaving as few as 20 mountain safety personnel on the mountain.
The union said Vail brought in around 30 replacement patrollers from its other resorts.
In the subsequent two weeks, resort officials say the limited staffing hampered operations, especially at Canyons Village.
At times the resort acknowledged strike impacts on X, but those posts were deleted and mentions of the strike removed. By the second week of the strike, resort officials made statements acknowledging affected guests’ experiences.
During the strike, Park City Mountain removed the metric on its website displaying the percentage of terrain open. After the strike, Vail Resorts Mountain Division President Bill Rock apologized to guests who were impacted.
The strike coincided with peak holiday ski traffic and led to widespread news coverage of unhappy guests and long lines at Park City Mountain.
There were also reports of skiers and riders ducking ropes to traverse closed runs and concerns about unsafe conditions on the mountain.
Local lodging companies reported an uptick in cancellations and said guests were leaving early due to the on-mountain conditions.
The plaintiffs are seeking an unspecified amount of damages in excess of $5 million. They are represented by Illinois attorneys from Tarpey Wix and Meyers and Flowers, as well as the Spence Law Firm in Jackson, Wyoming.
Vail Resorts declined to comment on pending litigation.
