A Wisconsin resort thought it had beaten a lawsuit over a summer tubing crash. A federal appeals court just put the case back in play.
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on September 8, 2026 revived an injury claim against Mont du Lac Snowsports and its insurer, Nova Casualty Company, ruling that a jury should decide whether the resort acted recklessly when a pass-holder was seriously hurt on a closed tube slide.
The rider and two friends had come to the resort in Superior, Wisconsin, in June 2022 to play disc golf, then decided to try the tube slides for the first time. One friend asked the front-desk manager whether they could use them. Taking the injured man's account - which the court had to accept at this stage - the manager answered, “I'm not going to say anything.”
The slides were closed, but that was not obvious. The “Ride Closed” sign sat with its chain coiled off to the side instead of blocking the platform, the conveyor belt to the top was switched off, and tubes lay scattered around the hill. The protective bumpers that normally stop riders from flying off the sides had been deflated, showing only as “floppy blue stripes” the group did not recognize as safety equipment.
The men used the slides anyway. One went down without incident. The injured man went next, his tube slid off the side, and he hit a tree, breaking his spine, ribs, and hip.
Nearly two years later he sued the resort and Nova Casualty. A district judge threw the case out before trial, ruling that the rider was a trespasser because the resort had never given permission to use the closed slides. Under Wisconsin law, a property owner owes a trespasser only a narrow duty - it is liable only if it caused the injury through “willful, wanton, or reckless conduct.” The judge found too little evidence of recklessness to send the case to a jury.
The Seventh Circuit agreed on the trespasser point. A guest allowed on the property can still become a trespasser by entering an area closed to the public, and the panel held that no reasonable jury could read the manager's non-answer as permission. Writing for the court, Judge Taibleson said “I'm not going to say anything” conveyed the opposite of permission - a signal that the group was not cleared to ride, but that the manager would not get them in trouble.
On recklessness, though, the court broke with the district judge. Reviewing the record fresh, it held that a reasonable jury could find the resort had acted recklessly - a standard the court described as “a conscious disregard of an unreasonable and substantial risk of serious bodily harm to another.” A jury could hear the manager's remark as a hint that the closed slides were safe enough to use, and that message, paired with deflated bumpers, loose tubes, and no barrier, could tip into recklessness.
The court illustrated the point with a comparison: a car owner who disconnects the brakes, then tells someone who asks to drive, “I'm not going to stop you.” Merely leaving the car that way might be negligent, the court said, but tacitly encouraging its use with knowledge of the danger could be reckless.
The panel vacated the earlier win and sent the case back for further proceedings. It left two questions the district court had not reached - whether the rider took on the inherent risk of tubing, and whether the resort's actions actually caused his injuries in the eyes of the law - open as possible alternative grounds for dismissing the case on remand.
For the insurer, the ruling keeps a claim alive that had already been dismissed once. The trespasser defense held on the question of permission, but it did not end the case: the recklessness exception now carries the dispute to a jury, with the resort and Nova Casualty still named as defendants.
