A woman whose lawsuit prompted the county to shut down a popular sledding hill in Boyce Park has won $500,000 as compensation for a broken back she suffered when she hit the frozen hay bales at the bottom.

But the county has appealed the verdict, saying the judge misinterpreted the law and that the woman is to blame for her injuries.

"The county never had a duty to protect sled riders from injury resulting from the activity of sled riding," county solicitors said in court papers asking Common Pleas Judge Joseph James to reverse a $500,000 verdict he awarded Stacey Rae Kelly of Turtle Creek last month.

The judge refused, and last week the county appealed to Commonwealth Court.

Ms. Kelly, 28, filed suit against the county, Plum and Monroeville seeking damages for her broken back, two broken legs and two broken ankles. Plum and Monroeville were dismissed from the case but it went forward against the county.

As a result of the suit, the county closed the hill, which had been used by sledders for decades and was regarded as one of the best slopes in the county.

On sled-riding Web sites, enthusiasts blamed Ms. Kelly for ruining their fun, saying the hay bales had been there as long as anyone could remember and that many sledders knew not to hit them.

The hay bales, and not the hill itself, are the subject of this legal tug-of-war.

Under state law, the county is immune to liability unless a plaintiff can prove negligence in one or more of eight categories of exceptions.

J. Kerrington Lewis, one of Ms. Kelly's lawyers, invoked two of them.

In the first, he said the hay bales were "real estate" and as such the county had an obligation to make sure they were safe. In the second, he equated the bales to traffic controls -- another of the exceptions -- and made a similar argument.

To succeed with either, he also had to show that the county was negligent in not realizing that the bales would "literally morph into a wall of ice."

In depositions, Andrew Baechle, director of county parks, said the bales were meant to keep people off the road so they didn't get hit by cars but admitted that he didn't know the bales absorbed water and then froze solid.

"I don't think I ever thought of that," he said.

After a one-day trial, Judge James sided with Ms. Kelly.

But Michael Wojcik, county solicitor, and his assistant, Bob Borgoyn, asked him to change his mind, saying neither of the exceptions that Mr. Lewis cited should apply. First, the lawyers argued, the hay bales were removed and replaced every year, so they shouldn't count as real estate because they aren't permanent fixtures.

Secondly, they said, "The hay bales were not traffic controls by any stretch of the imagination."

Even if the exceptions apply, they argued, Ms. Kelly has to bear some responsibility for her fate because she knew sledding is dangerous and "assumed the risk of injury."

Proof, they said, was Ms. Kelly's own observation that sledders jumped off their sleds before they slammed into the hay bales.

Ms. Kelly, a patient assistant at Forbes Regional Hospital, has endured nine surgeries and has not returned to work, her lawyers said.

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Correction/Clarification: (Published Oct. 18, 2009) This story as originally published Oct. 17, 2009 omitted the first name of a woman who won $500,000 as compensation for a broken back and other injuries she suffered while sledding in Boyce Park. She is Stacey Rae Kelly of Turtle Creek.