Super Jumper Trampoline Recall: What the CPSC Record Shows

Is Your Trampoline Covered? What the 2019 CPSC Recall of Super Jumper Trampolines Covers

The CPSC's notice, titled "Super Jumper Recalls Trampolines Due to Fall and Injury Hazards", carries the recall date August 01, 2019 and the recall number 19-179. It names Super Jumper Inc. as the recalling firm and describes the hazard this way: "The welds on the metal railings (legs) can fail, posing fall and injury hazards."

The notice says the recall "involves Super Jumper 14-foot trampolines, and 14-foot and 16-foot combo trampolines with enclosures sold without reinforcement clamps." It describes the trampolines as having a black mat, gold springs and a blue pad over the springs, with the Super Jumper logo printed in the center of the mat. According to the notice, the 14-foot models have six metal legs and the 16-foot combo has eight. It lists about 23,000 units, plus 860 in Canada, and says the products were sold online from November 2011 through June 2019.

The stated remedy is a repair. In the notice's own words, "Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled trampolines and contact Super Jumper for a free repair kit which consists of reinforcement clamps that clamp around the trampolines' welded joints." The notice lists a toll-free number, an email address and a "Recall" link on the company's website as ways to reach the firm.

A recall is a corrective safety action involving the CPSC: a product is repaired, replaced, refunded or pulled from sale. The CPSC page is the authoritative record and the place to confirm the recall's details and current status. For an owner, the details that usually decide whether a Super Jumper trampoline falls within the recall are its size, whether it has an enclosure, how many legs it has, and whether reinforcement clamps were ever installed. For someone who was hurt, those same details are often the first link between a specific trampoline and the recall record.

Why the Company's Role Matters If You Were Hurt

The CPSC notice lists Super Jumper Inc. as both the importer and the distributor of the recalled trampolines, and Transasia Sporting Goods Manufactory Co., of China, as the manufacturer, with China as the place of manufacture. This page describes each company only as the CPSC record does.

For an injured person, those roles have a concrete consequence. The law can treat a maker, an importer and a seller differently depending on the state, so the correct legal name and role of each business in the chain of sale often matters. A claim directed at the wrong business, or one that leaves out a business in the chain, can be harder to pursue. The recall notice is a useful starting point because it names who did what.

The notice also records the firm's reports: "Super Jumper has received 97 reports of the welds on the metal railings breaking, resulting in four consumers suffering minor injuries." That is the CPSC's statement of reports the firm received, not a finding about what caused any particular injury, and it says nothing about any trampoline outside the models the recall describes.

That leaves a narrower question for a family: was the trampoline involved actually one of the recalled models? A purchase record, the logo on the mat, the frame size and the number of legs are the kinds of details that tie a specific trampoline to the recall description.

If You Were Hurt on a Recalled Trampoline: What a Product Liability Claim Has to Show

If you were hurt, or your child was, the legal question is when a business that made, imported, distributed or sold a product is responsible for an injury the product caused. That is the area of law called product liability. It is mostly state law, so the answer can differ depending on where you live or where the injury happened; no single state's version applies everywhere.

In general terms, a product liability claim asks about three things. The first is a defect. Under 16 C.F.R. § 1115.4, a defect is "a fault, flaw, or irregularity that causes weakness, failure, or inadequacy in form or function." The regulation explains that a defect can come from a manufacturing or production error, from the design or materials, or from a product's "contents, construction, finish, packaging, warnings, and/or instructions." That regulation guides what firms report to the CPSC. It does not decide a state-law injury claim, but the categories are familiar ones: manufacturing, design and warning problems.

The second is causation, meaning that the defect is what actually caused the injury, not something else. The third is damages, the losses the law may allow a person to recover, which can include categories such as medical expenses, lost earnings and pain and suffering, depending on the state.

For a family weighing what happened, these three questions sort what is already known from what is still open. A broken weld on a recalled model may speak to the defect question, while medical records and an account of the fall speak to causation and damages. Where one of the three is unclear, that gap is often what a conversation with an attorney focuses on.

Does a Recall Prove Your Claim? Why a Recall Does Not Decide a Legal Claim — and What Does

The recall system and the court system answer different questions. Under 15 U.S.C. § 2064, a manufacturer, distributor or retailer that obtains information reasonably supporting the conclusion that a product fails to comply with an applicable consumer product safety rule or a voluntary standard the Commission relied on, fails to comply with another rule, regulation, standard or ban the Commission enforces, contains a defect that could create a substantial product hazard, or creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death must generally "immediately inform the Commission." The same section allows the Commission, after an opportunity for a hearing, to order notice, repair, replacement or a refund.

That system looks forward, protecting the public from an identified hazard in certain products. A court case looks back at one person's injury and asks who, if anyone, is responsible for it.

Three kinds of records are easy to blur together. An incident report, such as one filed with the CPSC through saferproducts.gov, records what someone says happened. It is an allegation, not a finding of causation. A recall record states the hazard, the products and the remedy. A legal finding comes only from a court or jury after the evidence is tested.

So a recall can be relevant evidence, especially on whether a hazard existed in a product line, but a claim still has to connect the specific trampoline to the specific injury. A recall also does not mean that an injury on an unrecalled product, or one that happened for other reasons, falls outside the law. For anyone trying to see how this recall record fits their own facts, that is the kind of question a conversation with our attorney can help sort out.

Types of Injuries Associated With Trampoline Falls

When a trampoline frame gives way, a jumper can fall onto the frame, the springs or the ground. Injuries from a fall like that can range from sprains and bruises to fractures and more serious harm, depending on the height, the angle of the fall and what the person struck. The notice itself records "four consumers suffering minor injuries" among the reports the firm received, and it should not be read as describing more than that.

More generally, trampoline falls can involve the arms, legs, neck and head. Our page on trampoline head injuries explains how those injuries happen and how serious they can be, and the CPSC's national estimates are summarized on our trampoline injury statistics page. Nothing here is medical advice, and an injury's type is described only to explain why it matters in a legal setting.

That setting is damages. The kind of injury shapes what losses may be at issue: treatment, time away from work or school, and lasting effects. For a parent of an injured child, this is often where worry lands first, on the bills and on recovery.

After a Fall: What a Person Hurt on a Super Jumper Trampoline May Want to Consider

When a backyard trampoline fails, the trampoline itself is often the most important piece of evidence. In product cases, the condition of a broken weld, a frame joint or a missing reinforcement clamp can be the center of the defect question, and a repaired, altered or discarded frame is harder to examine. That is why injured people and families often keep the trampoline as it was after the fall.

Records that often matter include:

• the trampoline, its parts and any repair kit or clamps that came with it;
• the purchase or order record showing when and where it was bought;
• medical records and bills;
• photos and video of the trampoline, the break point and the scene;
• any incident report, and any correspondence about the recall;
• the names of anyone who saw the fall.

Families also often note whether they received recall notice and whether the repair kit was installed, because those facts bear on what happened and when.

Every state has deadlines for filing an injury claim, and those deadlines differ from state to state. This page does not state any particular period, and the facts of each situation decide which rules apply.

How Your State's Rules Shape a Product Liability Claim After a Trampoline Injury

Whether a claim can go forward, and what it may be worth, depends largely on state law. For an injured person, three rules differ the most, and each can change the outcome.

The first is the statute of limitations, the deadline to file a lawsuit after an injury. Each state sets its own period, its own starting point and its own exceptions, which can include special rules for injured children. The stakes are direct: a claim filed after the governing deadline may be barred, which is why identifying that deadline early matters.

The second is fault. If you were partly responsible for the accident, many states would reduce what you may recover by your own share of responsibility, a rule called comparative fault. Some states bar recovery once a person's share passes a certain point. A few use contributory fault, an older rule under which a person who was partly at fault may be barred from recovering at all. In practice, how a jumper used the trampoline, how it was assembled and whether it was maintained can all come up under these rules and affect any recovery.

The third is damages. States differ on which categories of loss may be recovered and whether any limits apply, so the same injury can lead to different results in different states.

For a family that has lost someone, the claim is called a wrongful death claim, brought by certain family members or a representative after a death caused by another's wrongful act or a defective product. Who may bring it, what losses it covers and its deadline are all set by state law and vary widely.

Because the governing state can change the deadline, the fault rule and the damages available, where the trampoline was bought, where it was used and where the injury happened are often among the first facts an attorney asks about. An injury at a business rather than at home raises different questions, which our trampoline park injury lawyer page covers.