Case Analysis A

It$$s all Downhill from Here

History of Grundler Mountain Ski Resort

Grundler Mountain Ski Resort operates a popular skill hill in the Rocky Mountains. It was founded

in $1965$ by Thomas Grundler and has grown to be the largest ski resort in Western Canada. Mr$.$

Grundler had a reputation for treating his employees well and his guests even better. The safety

of his guests was of the upmost importance to Mr$.$ Grundler, and he spared no expense in

maintaining his Resort. Now well into his $80$s$,$ Thomas Grundler had reluctantly handed the reins

of his prized resort to his daughter, Gretchin Grundler.

Although Gretchin was a brilliant businesswoman, she had little interest in running her family$$s

Ski Resort. In her opinion, the Resort was a money pit. Her father had been overpaying the

employees for years, the price of lift tickets hadn$$t been raised since the $1980$s and the small

yearly profits were always reinvested into the Resort. Gretchin decided she would focus on

making the Resort more profitable and began making extensive changes. She cut staff, slashed

wages, switched food suppliers, increased lift ticket prices by $110\%,$ and hired Detweiler Industries

to take over lift maintenance, a company with a known history of poor work quality and multiple

lawsuits against it for negligence.

The impact of Gretchin$$s changes was most apparent with the quality of the staff. The majority of

the senior, experienced staff were either fired or quit, due to the wage cuts. The new hourly wage

for mountain staff was $30\%$ lower than surrounding ski hills. The result was a new cohort of

inexperienced employees, many of which were international and had never worked at a ski resort,

or even been on skis.

Ashley Spinelli

Although an accountant by trade, Ashley Spinelli had recently quit her job at a top tier firm to

pursue her dream of being a concert pianist. Although she had shown great promise in her youth,

even being called the next Arthur Rubinstein, Ashely chose to pursue a more stable career path

and enrolled in the accounting program at her local university. Ashley made a good living as an

accountant but if she could make it to the big stage, her earning capacity as a pianist would well

exceed her accountant$$s salary. It had only been a few months, but Ashley was beginning to have

second thoughts about her career change. Retraining her fingers to play proved harder than she

imagined, and she no longer had contacts in the industry to pursue job opportunities. Feeling a

bit depressed, Ashley was thrilled to get the invitation to go skiing at Grundler Mountain with her

good friend, TJ$.$

The Incident

Ashley did not have high expectations for the day. She was a novice skier at best and had heard

Grundler Mountain really went down hill after Thomas Grundler passed the family business on to

his daughter.

After a few runs, Ashley was feeling great. She even made the decision that she would accompany

TJ into the $$trick park$$ after lunch, a run with various jumps, slides and bars for those experienced

skiers and boarders seeking a thrill. TJ and Ashley stopped for lunch at the Alpine and each

ordered a beer. Beers soon turned into several shots, as Ashley thought she could use some

liquid courage for the trick park. Mikey, the bartender did one last shot with Ashley and TJ before

wishing them luck in the trick park. On the way up the chairlift, TJ and Ashley saw that several

Grundler Mountain employees were hard at work grooming the trick park and building a few new

jumps for the afternoon.

The trick park was well marked with an orange snow fence. A bright yellow sign guarded the

entrance, stating that all guests enter at their own risk, the Resort was not liable for any injury or

damages that guests may incur. Ashley recalled that there was a similar warning on the back of

her lift ticket and on the form, she signed to get her rented ski gear. TJ saw Ashley swaying

unsteadily on her skis before they entered the trick park and suggested that maybe they did too

many shots and should just go down the easy run. Ashley pushed passed TJ and proceeded to

go down into the park, successfully landing her first two jumps. When Ashley was approaching

the third, newly formed jump, she immediately noticed there was something off, but it was too late

to abandon the jump. Ashley$$s right ski got caught on the upper lip of the jump causing her to be

thrown nearly $3$ meters in the air, eventually landing entirely on her left hand.

The aftermath

Upon investigation, it was discovered that the Grundler Mountain staff responsible for the trick

park were not properly trained in making jumps and did not follow the proper protocol, including

testing the jumps before opening the park. In fact, the newly hired staff didn$$t even know there

was a protocol. They had made the jump too steep and angled, it was likely any experienced skier

would