Judge allows Birch Bay Waterslides injury suit to continue; county added to list of defendants
A formal request made by owners of Birch Bay Waterslides asking a judge to dismiss the lawsuit filed against the park owners after a visitor was severely injured on one of its slides was denied at a hearing Friday, Nov. 22, in Whatcom County Superior Court. At the same hearing, the judge allowed the injured visitor to sue three more parties, including Whatcom County Health and Community Services.
The park visitor, Larry Baker, was injured at the water slide park in August of 2023 when his legs went through the side of the Hairpin, one of the four main slides at the waterpark in Blaine.
Baker, who was 43 at the time of the injury, filed a civil tort lawsuit against the park owners May 9.
The original lawsuit stated that Baker “slid over a damaged or defective section, causing severe injury and other damages” and accused the park’s owners of negligence, stating that they had a duty to “keep the common areas of its property safe and properly maintained for the benefit of the customers.”
In a June response, the water park owners denied the claims, adding that Baker acknowledged and accepted the risk of “severe physical injury” when entering the park.
In October, the owners of Birch Bay Waterslides requested a judge dismiss the negligence claim entirely, court records indicate.
“Plaintiff’s claim is precluded by his signed acknowledgment and acceptance of Birch Bay’s terms and conditions as a prerequisite to his permissive use of the subject premises, including, in particular, Plaintiff’s express waiver and agreement to hold Birch Bay harmless for such claims,” the request states.
That request was denied at Friday’s hearing by Whatcom County Superior Court Judge Lee Grochmal, allowing the case to move forward.
At the same Friday hearing, Judge Grochmal agreed to allow Baker to amend the lawsuit against the owners of Birch Bay Waterslides by suing an additional three parties “whose involvement in this matter was discovered after the original filing of the complaint” and by changing the claim from negligence to gross negligence after further information was discovered, court documents show.
The three additional parties now facing the lawsuit include Safe Slide Restoration, Kingworks Consulting Engineers, and Whatcom County Health and Community Services (WCHCS), which lawyers for Baker say were “directly involved in the inspection, maintenance, and repairs of the waterslide equipment at the waterpark,” according to court documents.
“It is also known that despite the excessive corrosion and decay observed by Plaintiff’s experts on July 7, 2024, neither Safe Slide Restoration nor Kingworks alerted Birch Bay Waterslides to the existence of severe hazardous conditions, nor did they recommend appropriate repair of the same,” court documents state.
WCHCS is named in the lawsuit as having “failed for at least four years of annual inspections to discover that Birch Bay Waterslides was not maintaining appropriate inspection records, and, in fact, affirmatively documented in their official inspection reports that the park’s maintenance records were present and were well maintained, even though these records are believed to have never existed,” court documents state.
“While it is ordinary negligence for WCHCS inspectors to possibly forget to audit the park’s maintenance records and neglect to include it in their inspection reports, it is serious negligence to document the existence of records that were never present at the facility at all,” court records state.
Court documents also state a park patron who visited Birch Bay Waterslides one day before Baker “experienced pain on the same “Hairpin” slide the day before Mr. Baker’s injury.”
That patron allegedly reported the issue with the slide to two separate employees at the park, “specifically expressing concerns to them that the slide was coming apart,” according to court documents.
Baker’s lawyers further argue that facility inspections “unequivocally” found corrosion of water slide fasteners, missing and damaged fiberglass and a disdain for waterpark safety standards that existed for years before Baker’s injury.
“Not only were these issues ignored by Birch Bay Waterslides itself, whose maintenance supervisor, Trevor Parson, should have alerted the park to the need for repairs, Birch Bay Waterslides’ third-party contractors failed to report and recommend repairs to Birch Bay Waterslides over a period of at least five years,” court documents state.
The owners of Birch Bay Waterslides announced Nov. 14 that the waterpark will reopen for the 2025 summer season. It has been closed since Baker was injured there in 2023.
“We took a quick pause to begin a planned renovation as our park turns 40 years old,” the social media post announcing the reopening states. “We’ve been hard at work behind the scenes and look forward to sharing the improvements at the park as we begin our five-year plan for generations to come and celebrate their summer at Birch Bay Waterslides.”
This story was originally published November 24, 2024 at 1:10 PM.
