Cle Elum Lake
SPOKANE, Wash. – A jet ski rental company isn’t liable for the death of a man who was found drowned in a lake in Washington on a windy day.
Lenin Estrada Salgado was seen wearing a life jacket when he excitedly took the craft out on Lake Cle Elum in August 2022 but when he was finally found in the water, the jacket was floating nearby. The coroner found because it was still buckled, it must have come off him, rather than Salgado removing it himself.
The ensuing wrongful death lawsuit accused Last Resort of renting out the jet skis on a dangerously windy day. It was blowing 20-25 miles per hour and gusting higher, while the lake was “white capping with 3- and 4- foot waves at times,” police wrote.
No one saw exactly what happened to Salgado, who had left to ride the jet ski while his family had gone back to their vacation residence.
“How or why Salgado entered the water and drowned is unknown. Salgado could have fallen off the jet ski or been ejected,” Judge Megan Murphy wrote in an opinion Oct. 30 for the Washington Court of Appeals.
“He could have encountered debris in the water, like a floating log. He could have voluntarily elected to get off the jet ski and get into the water… We simply do not know what happened. This means we do not know if Salgado coming off the jet ski had anything to do, or not to do, with wind conditions on the lake.”
The lawsuit said conditions were such that they justified a small craft advisory that would have caused Last Resort to stop renting jet skis. It added Last Resort was grossly negligent in failing to warn Salgado of the dangers of riding in that weather.
An expert for Last Resort reviewed the wind speed data and said the conditions on that day did not warrant a small craft advisory under Washington rules. The National Weather Service issues those advisories for wind speeds of at least 24 mph and waves of at least 10 feet.
There is an assumption of risk for people engaging in recreational activities that prevents them from suing over their injuries. Last Resort said the dangers of riding a jet ski were so integral to the act of riding one that it owed no duty to warn Salgado.
“Here, the undisputed facts establish that Salgado impliedly assumed the risks at issue,” Murphy wrote.
“He was an adult who voluntarily rented the jet ski, observed the lake conditions (including the wind level and wave heights), fully fastened his life jacket, and proceeded into the water.”
Judge George Fearing dissented from the majority, who gave more credence to the plaintiff’s safety experts and felt Salgado’s estate established facts to overcome dismissal of the case. Though Last Resort’s safety checklist warned against jumping waves, its website continued to encourage it after Salgado’s death, noted Fearing.
A caption under a photo read: “With the wind on Lake Cle Elum, you are guaranteed to have some fun waves to play around with on our jet ski rentals.”
