Manson v. Mitchell: BC Court Says Waiver Applies to Single Climb, Not All

Climber and guide did not agree waiver would apply to an entire season

Dec 09, 2025

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Introduction

Hello and welcome to another edition of Canadian Climbing Law. Since there have been no new climbing cases since my last report, today we’ll look at another from the “back catalogue”.

Next up is Manson v. Mitchell. We’ll consider two decisions: an initial one from a summary trial (2023 BCSC 723) and a subsequent appeal (2024 BCCA 142). While this case arises out of a climbing accident, these decisions do not determine liability. To date, the court has yet to rule on this. Rather, they concern the chronological scope of the liability waiver the plaintiff signed. This makes Manson v. Mitchell noteworthy.

The parties’ dispute arose because the waiver only contained the date of their first climb, but the accident occurred on another climb.

The crux of these decisions is thus the proper interpretation of the date in the waiver. The defendant guide argued this date indicated the start of a season of climbing. The waiver therefore applied to all the climbs he and the plaintiff were to undertake, including the climb that resulted in the accident. By contrast, the plaintiff argued the date only referred to a single climb, i.e. the climb that occurred on it. The waiver, therefore, applied only to this one climb, and not any subsequent climbing.

The summary trial judge sided with the plaintiff; the appeal court agreed. In brief:

based on the language of the waiver alone, it did not apply to the climb on which the accident occurred; and
this result did not change even if the court interpreted the waiver accounting for the “surrounding circumstances” in which it was signed.

In the result, the court rejected the defendant’s request the case be dismissed.

Background

The initial decision is from the British Columbia Supreme Court following a summary trial. This is a streamlined trial procedure where evidence is presented to the court via affidavits and cross-examination.

The plaintiff was an avid outdoorsman and 63 years old at the time of the accident. The defendant was a professional mountain guide, certified by the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (his guiding company and the ACMG were also defendants).

The plaintiff and defendant climbed together on three occasions during the summer of 2021. Prior to the first climb, the plaintiff signed a waiver. This climb occurred without incident; likewise, the second climb. However, on the third climb, the accident occurred.

During the accident, the plaintiff fell seven meters. Both he and the defendant were injured and airlifted off the mountain.

The plaintiff sued, claiming compensation for injuries (physical and psychological) and economic losses.

At the time the plaintiff signed the waiver, he and the defendant had committed to the first climb, and had discussed the potential for a range of other climbs that season. However, it was not until after the first climb that they made any additional plans.

The Waiver Did Not Apply on a Plain Reading

If the court were to look only at the explicit terms of the waiver, it could not apply to the third climb. The defendant conceded this. As noted, the plaintiff had signed this waiver prior to the first climb. Significantly, the waiver only referred to the date of this first climb, which was June 18, 2021. The waiver contained no reference to any other climbing dates or timeframes, and it was the only waiver the plaintiff signed.

The Waiver Still Did Not Apply Considering the Circumstances

The defendant argued the court should interpret the waiver by looking beyond its explicit terms and factoring in the surrounding circumstances (that is, what the parties did, said, and thought) around the time the waiver was signed. From this perspective, per the defendant, the date in the waiver indicated the first of a series of climbs the parties were to undertake that summer. As such, the waiver applied to the entire season of climbing, including the climb resulting in the accident.

The court agreed it should consider the facts surrounding the signing of the waiver. This is standard contract law. But it did not agree this approach yielded a result different from a plain reading.

After analyzing the facts in careful detail, the court found no mutual intention on the part of both the plaintiff and the defendant that “June 18, 2021” was to refer not just to the climb on that date, but to the start of a season of climbing. At the time of signing, any subsequent climbs were still merely unconfirmed and unspecified possibilities of an indeterminate timeframe and involving different risks. While the defendant may have personally understood the waiver to include all climbs, the court found insufficient evidence, in all the facts, to indicate the parties were reciprocally aligned in this regard. Accordingly, the court ruled the waiver did not apply to the third climb.

Appeal Court Agrees With Trial Judge

The defendant appealed to the British Columbia Court of Appeal. He was unsuccessful. This court agreed with the trial judge’s analysis.

Notably, the Court of Appeal commented that, if the chronological scope of the waiver had included the third climb, it would have protected the defendant from liability from any of the types of claims to which it applied.

Takeaways

For anyone interested in Canadian law as it applies to climbing, this is a noteworthy case. Waivers play a primary role in risk management in the climbing community.

Importantly, this case does not stand for a general proposition that courts will refuse to enforce waivers aimed at including multiple climbs.

Rather, if there is a dispute about whether a waiver applies to one climb versus multiple, a court will interpret the waiver based on its terms viewed in relation to the factual matrix when it was signed. The key question will be whether the language in the waiver, and the facts relating to it, reflects a mutual intention on the part of both parties to limit the scope of this contract to a single climb or to define it broadly to include multiple.

Postscript

Since the release of these decisions, this case has resulted in yet another, namely Manson v. Mitchell, 2025 BCSC 1588. This decision also does not address liability. It is procedural in nature. I may write it up in the future but, in the meantime, I flag it only to indicate this case is on-going as of May 20, 2025. Maybe it’s settled by now, or maybe we will eventually see a trial decision.