Alterra Mountain Co. settles class-action Ikon Pass lawsuit over ski area shutdowns in 2020
Ski resort operator will pay $17.5 million to Ikon Pass skiers — and $2.9 million to lawyers — who sued the company over the pandemic-shortened season
The Colorado Sun
Derek Maiolo/Steamboat Pilot & Today
Alterra Mountain Co. has reached a $17.5 million settlement with skiers who bought the resort operator’s Ikon Pass and sued when the company closed its resorts in March 2020 at the start of the global pandemic.
A statement from Alterra Mountain Co. said the company made “the difficult decision” in March 2020 to shut down resort operations — which include Winter Park and Steamboat ski areas in Colorado — in conjunction with local, state and federal authorities.
“Although we fully stand by the decision to pause operations in the face of unprecedented and unknown health and safety risks, we wanted to move beyond March 2020 and have agreed to a settlement resolution for our valued pass holders who were impacted,” reads the statement from the resort operator, which directs impacted skiers to the website skipasssettlement.com for more information.
Vail Resorts in April 2020 announced it would offer pass holders 20% to 80% of what they spent on the 2019-20 Epic Pass, depending on how many days the pass was used. That offer was a credit for the 2020-21 season pass. The company spent $106 million issuing credits to pass holders for the following season.
A consortium of Epic Pass skiers sued Vail Resorts in 2020 arguing they were due cash refunds and that the company had broken the pass-purchase contract by ending the season early.
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U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson dismissed the class-action lawsuit in October 2021, ruling “Vail did not close its resorts prematurely, it closed when skiing was no longer safe.”
Read more via The Colorado Sun.
