As everyone who's lived and worked in and around a ski resort knows, Christmastime sucks. Sucks good, in a monetary, cashflow, glad-the-tourists-are-back kind of way but sucks bad in bringing out the worst in people - high stress, high expectations, high sense of entitlement and enough Type A whingers to sorely test your commitment to peace on earth, goodwill toward men... women... children.
Christmas really sucked last year for Charlie Hitchman. Charlie was a relatively young, first-year patroller at Sunshine Village ski area. Until December 17th, Charlie was livin' the dream: throwin' bombs, savin' lives, cheatin' death, as patrollers like to style it.
Keen to do his job and mindful of Sunshine's myriad safety rules, Charlie swung into action when he noticed five young guys skiing in a closed area. Patrollers both love and hate catching people in closed areas. Contrary to the conspiracy theorists out there, ski areas hate to close off terrain. They do it when there's a real risk to either the skiers themselves or the people below who'll get whacked in the avalanche the skiers will likely trigger. Patrollers like catching guys in closed areas because if they catch them, the probable mayhem that would ensue if they didn't will be avoided. They hate catching them because the culprits always give the patrollers a lot of crap.
Charlie was about to run into a lifetime's worth of crap.
The five voluntarily handed over their passes and ID when Charlie confronted them. When he asked them to accompany him to ski patrol headquarters, things began to go sideways. They demanded their passes back and one said, "Do you know who I am?"
As at most ski areas, the rules at Sunshine are both clear and indifferent to whom the offending skiers are. If you're caught skiing in a closed area you'll lose your pass - for varying lengths of time - and be escorted off the property. Full stop.
Unless, apparently, you're the owner's son.
Taylor Scurfield, spawn of owner Ralph Scurfield, and his friends suddenly - according to the statement of claim filed in the ensuing lawsuit - began to act aggressively and threaten the patroller. Scurfield demanded to speak with Chris Chevalier, saying, "Chevy would let him go," and apparently claiming he could ski anywhere he wanted. The group threatened to jump the patroller on the way back to the bump and told him he'd pay for what he'd done.
Charlie proceeded to do his job, more or less. He escorted them to the village, lectured them about closures and, perhaps mindful of the threats, allowed them go back to skiing instead of kicking their scurrilous asses off the mountain.
Little Scurfield apparently scurried home and told daddy how he was mistreated by the big, bad patroller and daddy sprung into action.
On December 29th, there were an unusual number of cabs at Sunshine's base area. When they showed up for work, Chris Chevalier, Rowan Harper, Chris Conway and Ben Chevalier were summoned into the star chamber and summarily fired, escorted off the premises and sent home in the cabs. Chris Chevalier, mountain and risk manager, was a 30-year employee; Rowan Harper, snow safety supervisor had worked at Sunshine since 1985; 51-year-old Chris Conway was a senior ski patroller; and Ben Chevalier was supervisor of lift operations.
Losing a core group of senior employees, people who'd worked their entire adult lives at building any ski resort into what it had become, would be a blow. Losing them suddenly, unexpectedly and, at least on the surface, in retaliation for doing their jobs had, according to reports coming out of the remaining mountain staff, a devastating effect. There was a void in leadership. People were asked to step into roles they arguably weren't prepared to take on. There was no succession plan. There was mistrust and fear. There may or may not have been compromises to safety.
Feeding the mistrust and fear, Charlie Hitchman was fired on January 18th after allegedly refusing to sign a letter of apology for, well, for doing his job.
Something snapped. On January 19th, all but six of the patrol staff staged a sick-in, gathering in Canmore in a show of solidarity and outrage. With so few safety personnel, the mountain opened only three lifts. When people complained, they were given $20 gift certificates but no explanation.
When the ever-pesky press got word of the job action, they began poking around. Two patrollers, Craig McArthur and Jock Richardson, became de facto spokesmen for the group. Daddy Scrufield fired them the next day, according to McArthur, "...after allowing me to work all day following my meeting with Mr. Scurfield and Co., on Thursday." When they asked why Charlie Hitchman was fired, they were informed he showed bad judgment in nabbing sonnyboy and his friends... in the closed area.
Regardless whether you're a right to lifer or a personal choice protagonist, there are simply some cases that cry out for retroactive abortion.
On January 26, the four people fired December 29 filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against Sunshine, seeking $435,000 in damages for lost wages and benefits. In a more enlightened, albeit more litigious, society, they'd have tacked on a claim for a few million in punitive damages. If ever there seemed to be a case calling for punitive damages, this is it.
According to their filing, the reasons given for their dismissal include "loss of trust" and "clerical errors made on waivers." CLERICAL ERRORS? Sunshine put up with, collectively, 88 years of clerical errors? Seems like the crap doesn't fall far from the arsehole.
There's been a bit of press on this, the de rigueur Facebook page - Support our Boys and Girls in Ski Patrol and boycott Sunshine Village: facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_128223313911058 - and a lot of local angst.
It makes me even happier to no longer labour under the yoke of foreign ownership at the MotherCorp. By all accounts, the fabulously wealthy boys from Fortress were either enlightened or benign, depending on who you talk to. Still, I'd rather hitch my future to more independent management who have widespread ownership - including myself - to account to. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so sayeth Mr. Orwell in Animal Farm .
Ironically, the senior Scurfield's pappy, from whom the family wealth flowed, was killed in an avalanche heliskiing, after failing to follow his guide's instructions while crossing a dangerous avalanche chute. The family sued, of course, and won a million bucks on a finding of 25 per cent negligence on the part of the guide; the other three-quarters was attributed to grandpappy Scurfield.
Brings to mind Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' comment in Buck v. Bell in 1927. Google it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell - cite_note-6
