Coates

Summary

Charles Coates (Coates) was fatally injured while riding a dirtbike in a park owned and operated by respondents. His heirs sued for wrongful death, alleging that respondents had negligently designed and maintained the trail on which Coates had been riding, causing Coates’s death. The trial court granted respondents’ motion for summary judgment, based on a contract Coates had signed before he was injured.

We conclude that a decedent’s preinjury contractual assumption of risk eliminates the possibility of tortious conduct by a potential defendant, and thus precludes a wrongful death action, if (1) the contract is not against public policy and (2) the risk encountered by the decedent is inherent in the activity in which the decedent was engaged, or the type of risk the parties contemplated when they executed the contract.

In this case, the “release” which Coates voluntarily signed before entering the park is not contrary to public policy under Tunkl v. Regents of University of California (1963) 60 Cal.2d 92 [ 32 Cal.Rptr. 33 , 383 F.2d 441 , 6 A.L.R.3d 693 ], which permits private, voluntary transactions in which one party assumes a risk which would normally fall…