Terbush

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In June 1999, Terbush was killed while climbing with two friends at Yosemite’s Glacier Point Apron. Three weeks ear- lier, another rockfall led park staff to temporarily close the Glacier Point Apron area and the nearby Curry Village camp- ground. The closure was lifted less than three hours after inspection, when the area was declared to be safe by a park ranger and James B. Snyder, the Yosemite historian who, though not a professionally trained geologist, had been docu- menting rockfalls at Yosemite for decades. Terbush’s climb- ing partners claim that when they went to Glacier Point Apron three weeks later, none of them saw any warnings about the recent rockfall.

Terbush’s parents brought suit under the FTCA, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b), alleging that NPS’s negligence in its design, con- struction, operation, and maintenance of the wastewater man- agement system on top of Glacier Point Apron exacerbated the natural exfoliation of the rockface, creating a dangerous condition that led to the rockfall that killed their son. The Ter- bushes also alleged that the NPS failed to warn of the danger- ous condition it had created, which was an unnatural…