California Trampoline Accident Lawyer

Whether Someone Else Was Responsible: California's Basic Rule

The question of whether anyone else is responsible for your injury starts with Civil Code section 1714(a). It says everyone is responsible not only for willful acts but also for an injury caused to another by "his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person," except so far as the injured person, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury on himself or herself. The same section says the extent of liability is defined by the Title on Compensatory Relief.

If you were hurt, that duty can point in three directions. Premises liability asks whether the people who own or run a park, a gym or a home kept and managed it with reasonable care. Negligent supervision asks whether those overseeing jumpers, such as park staff watching courts or an adult responsible for children in a yard, used ordinary care. Product liability is a separate theory that asks whether a trampoline, mat, spring, padding or safety enclosure was defective and whether that defect caused the injury.

These theories can overlap: a torn mat at a park could raise questions about both maintenance and design. What is at stake is who a claim can be directed to, since each theory points to a different party. A useful first step is sorting out whether the injury was about how a place was run, how people were watched, or how something was built, and who controlled the equipment. That sorting is one of the things a conversation with an attorney can help with.

If Your Child Was Hurt at a Park, a Friend's Home or a Public Facility

Where the jump happened can change the legal starting point in California. Commercial trampoline parks, private backyards, schools and public recreation spaces each raise different questions about who owned the property, who controlled it, and what duty applied.

California has a recreational-use statute that can matter outside the commercial setting. Under Civil Code section 846(a), an owner of any estate or other interest in real property "owes no duty of care to keep the premises safe for entry or use by others for any recreational purpose or to give any warning of hazardous conditions, uses of, structures, or activities on those premises to persons entering for a recreational purpose, except as provided in this section." Section 846(d) then says the section does not limit liability that otherwise exists in listed situations, including a "willful or malicious failure to guard or warn against a dangerous condition, use, structure or activity."

For you, the stake is whether a property owner owed a duty at all. Whether section 846 applies to a given trampoline, who invited whom, and whether one of its exceptions reaches the situation turn on the specific property and circumstances, so a park run as a business, a neighbor's backyard during a birthday party and a public facility can each be analyzed differently.

If your child was hurt at a friend's home, the questions often include whose property it was, who was supervising, and how the children came to be there. At a park, they more often involve staffing, court rules, equipment condition and the paperwork signed at entry. Writing down those details while they are fresh can make the later analysis easier.

Who May Be Responsible for Your Injury

Identifying who may be responsible usually starts with three questions: who controlled the place, who controlled the people, and who made or sold the equipment.

Trampoline park operators and the owners of the property they occupy owe the ordinary-care duty under section 1714(a), including in how courts are maintained, how jumpers are grouped, and how staff supervise. Equipment manufacturers, importers and sellers come into the picture when a frame, mat, spring, padding or enclosure is alleged to be defective. At a private residence, the homeowner and any adult supervising the children may be part of the inquiry.

Public entities are their own category. If an accident happened at a public school, a city recreation center or other government-owned property, the Government Claims Act's rules apply before any lawsuit, and they are stricter in timing; the filing deadlines section below sets them out. Missing that the property was public could mean missing a much shorter claim window.

Naming a potential defendant is not the same as showing responsibility; that depends on the facts. For many families, simply learning who owned the trampoline or the building is a significant step.

What a Claim Has to Show, and How Your Own Share of Fault Counts

If you are wondering whether a claim is possible, California negligence law generally looks for four things: a duty of care (here, the ordinary-care duty in section 1714(a)), a breach of that duty, causation linking the breach to the injury, and damages. A product-liability claim centers on whether the product had a defect, whether that defect caused the injury, and the resulting harm. An injury alone does not establish that anyone was at fault, and an accident alone does not establish that a trampoline was defective.

Fault is often shared. Comparative fault means responsibility is divided among the people whose carelessness contributed to an injury, including the injured person. In Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804, the Supreme Court of California replaced the all-or-nothing rule of contributory negligence with a system of pure comparative negligence, which assigns liability in direct proportion to the amount of negligence of each of the parties. Under that rule, an injured person's own share of fault reduces a recovery rather than barring it.

California also limits how non-economic damages are shared among defendants. Under Civil Code section 1431.2(a), in an action for personal injury, property damage or wrongful death based on comparative fault, each defendant's liability for non-economic damages is "several only and shall not be joint." Each defendant answers only for its own share: the amount allocated "in direct proportion to that defendant's percentage of fault."

If you were doing a flip when you were hurt, or you worry about what your child was doing, shared fault changes how responsibility is divided; it does not, on its own, end the question. What may be worth weighing is which evidence speaks to each element, and how each party's conduct may be viewed, both of which an attorney can help assess.

Filing Deadlines Under California Law — and Why They Shape Every Decision

A statute of limitations is the time the law allows for starting a lawsuit. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, California allows two years for "an action for assault, battery, or injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another." A claim filed after its deadline is typically barred, however strong the facts.

Children are treated differently. Code of Civil Procedure section 352(a) provides that if a person entitled to sue was, when the cause of action accrued, under the age of majority or lacking the legal capacity to make decisions, the time of that disability is not part of the time limited for the action. Section 352(b) says this does not apply to an action against a public entity or public employee on a cause of action for which a claim must be presented under the Government Code.

Public entities have their own sequence. Government Code section 911.2(a) requires a claim relating to a cause of action for death or for injury to person to be presented not later than six months after accrual; claims on other causes of action have one year. Government Code section 945.4 provides that, except as Sections 946.4 and 946.6 provide, no suit for money or damages may be brought until a written claim has been presented and acted on by the board or deemed rejected. Under Government Code section 945.6(a), except as Sections 946.4 and 946.6 provide and subject to subdivision (b), suit must be commenced within six months after written notice under Section 913 is personally delivered or mailed, or, if no such notice is given, within two years from accrual.

A separate rule covers exposure cases. Code of Civil Procedure section 340.8(a) sets, for injury or illness based on exposure to a hazardous material or toxic substance, the later of two years from the date of injury or two years after the plaintiff becomes aware, or reasonably should have become aware, of the injury, its physical cause, and enough facts to suggest it was caused by another's wrongful act. Section 340.8(b) sets a comparable later-of rule for wrongful death based on such exposure.

When a child was hurt on public property, or when it is unclear when a claim accrued, these rules interact in ways that are easy to misread. Those are questions you may want to discuss in a case evaluation, where the dates, the property and the parties involved can be talked through.

If You Lost a Family Member in a Trampoline Accident

If a trampoline accident took the life of someone in your family, the first legal question is often who has standing to act, and California answers it by statute. Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60(a) allows a claim for a death caused by another's wrongful act or neglect to be asserted by the decedent's surviving spouse, domestic partner, children, and issue of deceased children, or, if there is no surviving issue, by the persons, including the surviving spouse or domestic partner, who would inherit the decedent's property by intestate succession. If the parents would be entitled to sue and are deceased, the decedent's legal guardians may sue as if they were the parents. The decedent's personal representative may also assert the claim on these persons' behalf.

The same building blocks apply: a duty, its breach, causation, and the death as the harm. A death does not, by itself, prove that anyone was at fault. The time to file falls under section 335.1, and the public-entity rules apply if government property was involved, so the stake for a grieving family is a deadline that runs regardless.

For a family in this position, the questions to weigh often include which relatives fall within the statute, whether a personal representative will act, and whether the property was public. Those are matters an attorney can help sort out.

Records and Information That Often Matter in These Cases

If you were hurt, the records that usually matter begin with medical records documenting the injury and its treatment. Photos and video of the trampoline, the venue and the injury come next, along with any surveillance footage a park or neighbor may have.

When equipment is in question, families often keep the trampoline itself, its parts, and any packaging, labels, manuals and purchase records. Incident reports written at the venue, or by a school or public agency, also matter, as do the names and contact details of people who saw what happened.

Many trampoline parks ask jumpers or parents to sign a participation agreement or release at entry. A waiver or release is a written agreement in which a participant agrees not to hold the operator responsible for certain injuries. Its legal effect depends on California law, on what the specific document says, and on the facts; it is not self-evident from the paper alone. Courts in other states have ruled on such documents, as described on our pages on Sky Zone trampoline park injuries and Urban Air park claims, and those rulings rest on their own states' law. A copy of whatever was signed is often among the records families gather.

What is at stake is proof: these records are how breach, causation and harm are shown or questioned, and equipment that is discarded or footage that is overwritten may not be recoverable later.