Posted December 4, 2016 11:57 pm by

Member who fell from rock-climbing wall sues Lifetime Fitness

Lifetime Fitness is being sued by a man who fell 30 feet from the top of a rock-climbing wall in 2014.

“On Feb. 17, 2014, David Alvarez accompanied his wife and daughter to Lifetime Fitness in Novi to utilize its climbing wall; none had every climbed the wall before,” according to Moss and Colella, the law firm representing Alvarez. “Upon arrival at Lifetime, they signed a standard recreational waiver releasing Lifetime of all claims of negligence.

“The gross negligence claim at issue centers around the fact that Lifetime personnel failed to make certain that David Alvarez was harnessed correctly.”

Once atop, he asked how to get down and was told “just let go,” according to the lawsuit originally filed in Oakland County Circuit Court in 2014.

He let go, the harness failed and he plummeted to the ground suffering serious injuries, according to the lawsuit.

An Oakland County Circuit Court judge dismissed the lawsuit in June 2015, stating there wasn’t evidence of gross negligence, but the state Appeals Court reversed that decision Friday. The case will now return to the Oakland County Circuit Court for litigation.

A pretrial hearing is scheduled for January.

According to the lawsuit, an employee watched as Alvarez got into his harness backwards, failed to hook it up properly and climbed up the wall.