West Hartford-based litigation firm Gfeller Laurie LLP has quietly assembled a deep bench of ski defense attorneys, adding offices in two major skiing markets over the last six months, while the industry grapples with a shift in how courts view liability.
The expansions into Denver and Rutland, Vermont, also brought a rare distinction: Gfeller Laurie now counts four former presidents of the Association of Ski Defense Attorneys among its 39 lawyers.
“We have four former presidents now, which I definitely think is more than anybody else has,” said Charles F. Gfeller, co-founding partner of the firm, in a recent interview with the Hartford Business Journal.
With the new offices, Gfeller Laurie — which in 2025 ranked 11th on Hartford Business Journal’s list of largest Greater Hartford law firms — added six attorneys overall.
One of them is partner and ski litigation veteran Thomas P. Aicher, who joined Gfeller Laurie from Rutland-based Cleary, Shahi & Aicher after two of his partners retired Jan. 1.
“Suddenly, I needed some more horsepower,” Aicher said.
For Gfeller Laurie, the additions filled geographic gaps while deepening expertise in a specialty practice area. The firm had long wanted a presence in northern New England and Colorado, where insurance and corporate clients increasingly sought representation.
“It’s really opportunity and circumstance,” Gfeller said. “We’ve always been entrepreneurial minded and entrepreneurial focused, and have always had an attitude that if we saw opportunity, we would kick the tires on it and take it, if it was appropriate.”
Aicher said he has defended Vermont ski areas in high-profile cases, including a February 2024 federal jury trial where Vermont’s Okemo Mountain Resort and Vail Resorts prevailed against a skier left paralyzed after crashing into snowmaking equipment.
Gfeller has similar experience. In 2012, the Connecticut Appellate Court upheld a defense verdict he secured for Ski Sundown in New Hartford after a teenager became paralyzed in a 2006 terrain park accident. The jury unanimously found the plaintiff responsible for his own injuries.
Ski litigation operates in a unique legal environment. In most ski states — including Connecticut — statutes generally block lawsuits tied to injuries caused by skiing’s inherent risks, setting a high bar for plaintiffs.
But when they do succeed in proving a resort violated safety regulations or acted negligently beyond those inherent risks, the financial consequences can be severe.
‘Not bulletproof protection’
Gfeller Laurie’s expansion comes at a pivotal moment for ski resorts facing growing uncertainty over liability — particularly in Colorado, one of the industry’s most important markets.
In May 2024, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Crested Butte that liability waivers — the fine print skiers accept when buying lift tickets — cannot be used to block lawsuits alleging a resort violated state safety laws and regulations. In other words, even if a skier signed a waiver, the resort can still face legal exposure if it failed to comply with mandated safety standards governing lift operations.
Importantly, the Supreme Court did not decide that Crested Butte was negligent or responsible for the accident; it ruled that the waiver could not automatically prevent the lawsuit from going forward. The case later went to a jury, which found the resort at fault and awarded damages that were ultimately reduced under Colorado law to $12.4 million.
The decision has raised concern across the ski industry because it limits what operators once viewed as their strongest legal defense in lawsuits involving chairlifts and other safety-regulated resort operations.
It remains to be seen whether other states’ courts will follow the decision.
“I think there’s probably a realization by a lot of resort operators that the law is not bulletproof protection for them,” Gfeller said, declining to comment specifically on the Miller case.
Risk management
Today, ski resorts are also far more complex businesses than they once were, operating as year-round destinations with a mix of recreation and hospitality — from snowboarding and tubing to mountain biking, zip lines, scenic lifts and seasonal festivals. That expansion in offerings, legal experts say, has broadened the range of liability risks, and increased the value of specialized counsel.
When serious injuries occur at ski resorts, the financial stakes can be enormous.
“The demands in the cases are bigger, the exposures are bigger, and that I attribute to the cost of medical care for these really serious injury cases,” Aicher said. “People really have no choice but to try and pursue litigation, because they’ve got to figure out a way to pay these bills. Modern health care costs are driving litigation in a lot of ways.”
Medical bills tied to catastrophic injuries — such as spinal cord damage, traumatic brain injuries or paralysis — can exceed $1 million for initial treatment alone, with lifetime care costs climbing into the tens of millions of dollars.
The shifting legal landscape has heightened demand for proactive risk management, according to Gfeller, as resort operators work to avoid high-stakes litigation.
Beyond defending lawsuits, the firm helps clients reduce risk through staff training, contract reviews for third-party events and updates to safety protocols — from lift operations and ski school programs to hotel amenities and other recreational activities.
“We do a lot of proactive work with our clients,” Gfeller said. “Because of the recognition that there are inherent risks to a lot of the activities that they are sponsoring at their facilities, we help them to come up with the best strategies, methodologies, what have you, to manage those risks, to try to minimize bad outcomes, and to do their business as best as possible.”
Geographic barriers in ski litigation have also diminished significantly in recent years, legal experts said. Major resort operators such as Vail Resorts and Alterra Mountain Co. own properties across multiple states, creating demand for law firms that can support clients across jurisdictions without relying on separate local counsel.
Vail Resorts now operates 42 ski resorts across four countries, up from 10 before 2015, according to the company’s website.
“To have one firm handling or available to fully support that client in two, three jurisdictions is really to benefit the client more than it is to try and dominate the marketplace,” Aicher said.
Looking ahead
Gfeller Laurie’s sports and recreation practice now represents facilities throughout the United States and the Caribbean, including ski areas, ice arenas, water parks, rock climbing facilities, zip line operators and equine operations.
While the firm has no immediate plans for further geographic expansion, Gfeller said growth remains on the table if the right opportunity arises.
The firm now operates eight offices across Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Vermont. Its other major practice areas include insurance, financial services, construction, commercial litigation, health care and professional liability and transportation.
“We’re always looking to grow in a way that makes sense for our firm, whether it’s sports and recreation, or one of the other practice areas we have,” Gfeller said.
