Connelly

In this personal injury action, plaintiff Patrick Connelly (Connelly) sued defendant Mammoth Mountain Ski Area (Mammoth) after colliding with a ski lift tower. In granting summary judgment for Mammoth, the trial court rejected Connelly’s claim that Mammoth improperly padded the tower; instead, the court found the collision with the tower to be an obvious, avoidable and inherent risk for which Mammoth owed no duty under the primary assumption of risk doctrine defined in Knight v. Jewett (1992) 3 Cal.4th 296 [ 11 Cal.Rptr.2d 2 , 834 P.2d 696 ]. We shall affirm the judgment. Pertinent facts will be set forth in the discussion that follows.

Discussion

1. Standard of Review

A motion for summary judgment “shall be granted if all the papers submitted show that there is no triable issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subd. (c).) An appellate court determines on its own whether these criteria have been met. (Jambazian v. Borden (1994) 25 Cal.App.4th 836, 844 [ 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 768 ].) For purposes of a summary judgment motion, “[a] defendant . . . has met his or her burden of showing that…