Aspen Skiing Company settles $1.58 million class action lawsuit

Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Aspen Skiing Company settled a class action lawsuit for $1.575 million Monday to be distributed to around 10,000 past and present employees.
The final settlement comes after over a year of legal battle, when a former employee alleged that SkiCo deprived workers of state-mandated, paid 10-minute breaks for every four hours worked. The lawsuit also alleged the company failed to compensate employees for their on-mountain commute, and presented misleading information about friends and family benefits and ticket vouchers.
District Court Judge Anne Norrdin granted Monday the joint motion for the settlement approval filed by SkiCo and the plaintiff in October.
“I finally conclude that the proposed class action settlement is fundamentally fair, adequate, and reasonable under the circumstances,” Norrdin said.
The employees are expected to receive a mix of cash payments and vouchers, according to the plaintiff’s representative, Alexander Hood, who described the settlement agreement. The cash payments, $875,000 of the total settlement, will range from $5 to $375 payments to current or former employees. The vouchers, constituting $700,000 of the payout, will range from $64.58 to $114.57, and can be used for on-mountain food and beverage, rental, retail, ticketing, or online purchases.
“Those amounts are based on the amount of time worked,” Hood said.
The plaintiff will be awarded $30,000 as representative of the employees.
SkiCo approved of the settlement to end the expensive nature of ongoing litigation but admitted no fault or liability regarding the allegations, according to their October agreement with the plaintiff.
Those to benefit were divided into two categories of workers, according to Hood. To be compensated for their missed breaks under Colorado law are employees defined as “the class,” consisting of 6,351 current and former workers employed since October 2021. To be compensated for on-mountain commute time is the “on-mountain subclass,” consisting of 3,761 current and former workers employed since October 2018.
The majority of eligible employees have already been contacted via email or mail, Hood said. The settlement will be funded in the coming months and vouchers will be made available to individuals through the Aspen employee portal, accessible to current and former workers, for the 2025-26 ski season.
The plaintiff filed the lawsuit in October 2023, alleging that he — and the other employees in his situation — lost wages because SkiCo “wilfully” deprived workers of a paid 10-minute break for every four hours of work, and as such failed to pay him additional wages for the missed breaks.
He also alleged that he and the other employees should be compensated for their on-mountain travel because they were required to show up at the lift or gondola at a specific time. He said employees would often transport work-related materials such as trash and trash cans while traveling, unpaid, to and from the on-mountain workstations.
He added in the complaint that workers were faced with physical hazard and exertion due to the dangerous nature of employee-mandated, on-mountain travel, which employers are required to compensate by Colorado law.
Thirdly, he alleged that he and the other employees were misled in their contractual agreement, which promised them discounted and complimentary lift tickets for friends and family, but which they were not eligible for until the second year of employment. The plaintiff alleges that they were not told this before being hired.
As such he alleged SkiCo violated the Colorado Wage Claim Act, the Colorado Minimum Wage Act, the Colorado Consumer Protection Act, breached their contract, and committed civil theft.
SkiCo moved to dismiss the claim in December 2023.
The company argued that as stated in the employee portal, “(e)mployees may not forgo breaks” and are permitted to take one paid 10-minute break per four hours worked. They advised the court to dismiss the plaintiff’s claims that the company “willfully” deprived employees of paid 10-minute breaks and required compensation.
They moved to dismiss the claim that the plaintiff and employees were exposed to heightened danger in employee-mandated transportation. They argued that transportation modes used to commute to on-mountain workplaces, such as lifts, gondolas, snowcats, snowmobiles, as well as via skiing and snowboarding, are no more dangerous than driving. The helmets they require for skiers and snowboarders are akin to vehicle-related safety equipment like seatbelts.
The company also argued that they had adequately warned the plaintiff in the job description that the friends and family benefits were available to the “majority” and not “all” Aspen Skiing Company, ASPENX, and hospitality branded jobs, and urged the court to dismiss his voucher-related claims.
“We have a pending motion to dismiss that raised a series of meritorious legal arguments that we believe may have been granted should the litigation have continued,” Steven Gutierrez, attorney at Holland and Hart LLP representing SkiCo, said in court Monday.
SkiCo declined to comment on the litigation.

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