Bolduc v. Coffin

A judgment on the merits by the Addison County Court, sitting without a jury, that the defendant proprietors of a swimming area operated for profit are not liable for the death by drowning of Luke Bolduc, a seven-year-old non-swimmer, is appealed here by Luke’s parents.

The individual defendants are the sole shareholders of the corporation, to which they leased the property utilized as a camping, swimming, and picnic facility. The swimming area was man-made, by the addition of sand to an area of a four and one-half acre pond. It is delineated by two parallel buoyed ropes extending sixty-five…