Judge sides with family in lawsuit over death of exchange student

A federal judge has dismissed from liability the Columbia Falls host family of a 16-year-old German exchange student who died in a skiing accident in 2010.

Fred and Lynne Fred Vanhorn were removed from a lawsuit filed by the parents of Niclas Waschle.

Waschle’s parents earlier this year sued the Vanhorns, Whitefish Mountain Resort and the company that coordinated the foreign exchange.

Waschle died after falling headfirst into a tree well while skiing at Whitefish Mountain Resort on Dec. 29, 2010.

Federal U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy wrote that he believed the Vanhorns when they submitted written testimony saying that they warned Waschle about the dangers of skiing alone. Even if the Vanhorns didn’t warn Waschle, Molloy wrote that it is unlikely the lawsuit would prevail.

“Viewing the facts in plaintiffs’ favor, no reasonable jury could conclude that it was apparent or reasonably should have been apparent to either of the Vanhorns that allowing Niclas to ski alone without warning him about the inherent dangers of skiing was likely to result in his fall into a tree well and subsequent death and that the Vanhorns embraced that known risk with indifference to the consequences,” Molloy wrote.

Molloy noted that Waschle was an intermediate skier who had gone on solo skiing trips in the Swiss Alps in the past. Waschle had written to the Vanhorns prior to his arrival that he was an avid skier. His parents and the Vanhorns discussed purchasing the ski pass and Waschle’s parents provided money for him to ski at Whitefish Mountain Resort, Molloy wrote.

“While the failure to warn about tree wells or skiing alone under these circumstances could potentially amount to ordinary negligence, ordinary negligence even if it existed is insufficient to defeat summary judgment here,” Molloy wrote.

Niclas Waschle was attending Columbia Falls High School and had been a member of the Wildcat cross-country team. He was living with the Vanhorns as part of the World Experience exchange program.

Both World Experience and Whitefish Mountain Resort remain as defendants in the wrongful-death lawsuit.

A jury trial is set for Nov. 30 to decide whether Whitefish Mountain Resort was negligent in not advising people about risks of tree wells. The lawsuit claims another man died 10 days after Waschle’s death when he fell into a tree well while snowboarding alone in the same area where Waschle crashed.

World Experiences also will defend itself during the trial. The company is accused of preventing Waschle’s parents from maintaining normal parental oversight by prohibiting the teen from taking a laptop computer or cellphone to the United States.