Lawsuit filed over deadly ATV crash

SANDPOINT - The family of a Sand-point man killed in an all-terrain vehicle crash on Schweitzer Mountain last year has filed a wrongful death suit against the resort's operators and the Independent Highway District.

The widow and children of Kevin W. Sienkiewicz are seeking unspecified damages for negligence, according to a lawsuit filed in 1st District Court on Dec. 18. The filing comes about eight months after the family filed $5 million tort claims against the resort and highway district.

Sienkiewicz, 41, died after colliding with a steel cable stretched across an access road leading to Schweitzer's sewage lagoons on Nov. 10, 2007. He died of severe neck trauma, the lawsuit said.

Sienkiewicz was a wastewater treatment plant technician for the resort's utility company.

"The accident was a tragedy that Schweitzer employees are still struggling with. We are sympathetic to the family's needs and are so very sorry for their loss," Schweitzer CEO Tom Chasse said in a statement.

Independent Highway District officials were not available for comment on Friday. A message left at the district's office was not immediately not returned.

The cable was used to prevent unauthorized access to the road and the lagoon site. The cable was attached to metal posts with padlocks, which Sienkiewicz had the keys to, a Bonner County sheriff deputy's report said. The access road branched off of Fall Line Road.

Inspectors from the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded Sienkiewicz was riding the ATV to the lagoon site when he struck the cable, an OSHA official in Boise said last spring.

The lawsuit alleges the cable was not marked, although the deputy's report stated the cable had several ribbon markers, one of which was smeared with blood. Officials from OSHA, however, said the cable was insufficiently marked.

The suit accuses Schweitzer negligently maintaining the cable and the highway district of allowing the cable to be there. Independent Highway District officials stated earlier this year that roads on that portion of the mountain are not within  its jurisdiction.

Sienkiewicz is survived by his wife, Linda, and the couple's two minor children. Linda Sienkiewicz also has two sons from a prior relationship. The family lives in Lewiston and is being represented in the suit by the Hepworth, Janis & Brody law firm in Twin Falls.