Colorado Trampoline Accident Lawyer

How Colorado Law Approaches a Trampoline Injury Claim

A trampoline injury claim in Colorado usually rests on negligence: the idea that someone owed a duty of care, failed to meet it, and that failure caused an injury with real losses. Whether those four pieces are present depends on the facts, and no injury by itself proves anyone was careless.

For someone who was hurt, the legal theory that fits the facts shapes what has to be shown and against whom. If the injury happened at a trampoline park or at a home, the usual starting point is premises liability: the law of a property owner's or operator's responsibility for conditions and activities on its property. The exact duty Colorado assigns to different kinds of visitors depends on the state's current law, which this page does not set out. Negligent supervision is a claim that staff, rules or monitoring fell short of what the situation called for. Product liability is the law governing a claim that a product itself was defective, and the Colorado Revised Statutes provide that an action based on the failure to provide proper instructions for the use of any product "shall be brought within two years after the claim for relief arises and not thereafter."

Colorado also has a recreational-use statute. Under section 33-41-103 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, subject to section 33-41-105, a landowner who "invites or permits, without charge, any person to use such property for recreational purposes" does not thereby give that person "the legal status of an invitee or licensee to whom a duty of care is owed." Section 33-41-104 keeps liability in place for "willful or malicious failure to guard or warn against a known dangerous condition," and where "the owner of land charges the person who enters or goes on the land for the recreational use thereof." A park that charges admission may therefore be treated differently from land opened for free. If you paid to jump, or jumped somewhere free of charge, that detail is one an attorney can help weigh, since how the statute applies to a particular place turns on the facts.

Trampoline Accident Scenarios This Page Covers

The facts of what happened tend to decide which legal theory fits, and that in turn shapes who may be responsible.

At a commercial park, injuries can come from falls off a mat or onto a frame, collisions between jumpers of different sizes, padding or barriers that are missing or worn, and courts that are crowded or not watched. These usually raise premises liability and negligent supervision questions. Landings in a pit are covered on the page about foam pit injuries.

At a home, a backyard trampoline injury usually involves a guest, often a neighbor's child. Questions then turn on what duty the homeowner owed that visitor under Colorado's current law, including how the state treats children who come onto property uninvited.

When equipment itself gives way, the case can look different. A spring that snaps, a mat that tears or an enclosure net that fails can point toward a product liability claim under section 13-80-106 of the Colorado Revised Statutes. A broken part is not proof of a defect; a product claim asks whether the product was defective and whether that defect caused the injury.

Many cases mix these. A worn mat at a park may raise both a maintenance question and a product question. Injuries range from fractures to spinal injuries to trampoline head injuries. If you are unsure which scenario describes your accident, a plain account of where it happened, on what equipment and under whose watch is often what lets an attorney sort out which theories, and which deadlines, may be in play.

Who May Be Responsible When Someone Is Hurt on a Trampoline in Colorado

If you are trying to work out whom a claim might be brought against, the starting point is usually control: who ran the place, who owned the equipment, who maintained it and who made or sold it.

A trampoline park operator or property owner may face a premises liability claim about the conditions and supervision at the facility. A residential property owner may face a claim about a backyard trampoline and how guests, including children, were allowed to use it. A manufacturer or seller may face a product claim, subject to the two-year period in section 13-80-106. A company hired to inspect, install or repair equipment may face an ordinary negligence claim if its work is part of what went wrong.

More than one party can share responsibility. Under Colorado's comparative-negligence rule in the Colorado Revised Statutes, the court reduces a verdict "in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to the person for whose injury, damage, or death recovery is made" and enters judgment for the defendant if that proportion is equal to or greater than the defendant's negligence. Because fault is compared party by party, leaving someone out of the picture can change how the shares look. For a parent sorting through a child's injury, the practical question is often simply who had a hand in the equipment, the rules and the supervision that day. The page on trampoline park injury claims explains these roles in general terms.

Waivers and Releases: What They Do and Do Not Decide

Many people who were hurt remember signing something at the front desk or on a tablet before jumping. That document is usually a participation agreement or release: a contract in which the patron agrees to accept certain risks and, often, gives up certain claims against the business.

Its effect in Colorado depends on the state's current law, and on a handful of concrete factors that can be checked against the document itself:

• its exact wording, and what risks and claims it names;
• who signed it;
• whether the injured person was an adult or a child, and whether a parent signed for the child, which raises a separate legal question about the child's own claim;
• what kind of claim is being made, for example premises, supervision or product;
• whether it contains an arbitration clause.

If you signed a release, it is a fact to be examined, not the end of the analysis. A copy of the agreement, set against the list above, gives a conversation with an attorney a concrete place to start: what the release covers and what it leaves out. The page on trampoline park waivers explains how these documents are typically structured.

Filing Deadlines Under Colorado Law

A statute of limitations is the deadline for filing a lawsuit; a case filed after it runs is generally barred.

Section 13-80-102 of the Colorado Revised Statutes provides that certain actions "must be commenced within two years after the cause of action accrues, and not thereafter," including "Tort actions, including but not limited to actions for negligence." That paragraph "does not apply to any tort action arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle as set forth in section 13-80-101 (1)(n)." The same section sets two years for "All actions for wrongful death, except as described in subsection (2)," the exception subsection (2) provides, a four-year period, for a defendant who committed vehicular homicide and left the scene of the crash.

Product claims have their own provision. Under section 13-80-106, a product action against a manufacturer or seller, including one for "the failure to provide proper instructions for the use of any product shall be brought within two years after the claim for relief arises and not thereafter."

Children are treated specially, with a condition. Section 13-80-106(2) says that if a person entitled to sue "is under the age of eighteen years, mentally incompetent, imprisoned, or absent from the United States at the time the cause of action accrues and is without spouse or natural or legal guardian, such person may bring said action within the time limit specified in this section after the disability is removed. If such person has a legal representative, such person's representative shall bring the action within the period of limitation imposed by this section." Section 13-81-103 adds that if a person under disability has a legal representative when the right accrues, or one is appointed before the disability ends, the limitation period runs "in the same manner, for the same period, and with the same effect as it runs against persons not under disability." Because many injured children have a parent or guardian, this condition matters a great deal.

When the claim accrued, and which period applies, are fact questions that a conversation with an attorney can help sort out.

Colorado's Comparative-Fault Rule and What It Means for Your Claim

Section 13-21-111 of the Colorado Revised Statutes states the rule directly:

"Contributory negligence shall not bar recovery in any action by any person or his legal representative to recover damages for negligence resulting in death or in injury to person or property, if such negligence was not as great as the negligence of the person against whom recovery is sought, but any damages allowed shall be diminished in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to the person for whose injury, damage, or death recovery is made."

Subsection (3) adds that if the injured person's proportion "is equal to or greater than the negligence of the person against whom recovery is sought," the court "shall enter a judgment for the defendant."

In plain words, this is modified comparative negligence. A person who was partly careless is not shut out, but any damages are reduced by their share. If that share is as large as, or larger than, the defendant's, there is no recovery against that defendant.

On a trampoline, these comparisons can be hard. Posted park rules, warnings, the age of the jumper, whether a double bounce or flip was involved and whether staff were watching may all bear on how fault is weighed. If you are a parent worried that your child broke a rule, the statute's answer is that the comparison of shares, not the rule-breaking alone, is what the law looks at.

Damages Colorado Law May Allow

Damages in a Colorado injury case generally fall into two groups. Economic damages are measurable losses such as medical expenses, lost earnings and the cost of future care. Noneconomic damages cover losses without a receipt, such as pain and suffering, emotional distress and lost enjoyment of life. What the law may allow in any case depends on the facts and the proof.

The Colorado Revised Statutes limit damages for noneconomic loss or injury, outside actions against a health-care professional or health-care institution, depending on when the action was filed:

• For a civil action filed before January 1, 2025, the total "shall not exceed the sum of two hundred fifty thousand dollars, unless the court finds justification by clear and convincing evidence therefor," and "In no case" may it exceed five hundred thousand dollars.
• For a civil action filed on or after January 1, 2025, and before January 1, 2026, or any claim that accrues on or after January 1, 2025, other than a wrongful death action, the total "must not exceed the sum of one million five hundred thousand dollars."

Wrongful death damages follow section 13-21-203, described in the next section. Which bracket applies depends on the filing and accrual dates, a point that matters for anyone whose injury straddles those dates.

Wrongful Death After a Colorado Trampoline Accident

Wrongful death is a claim brought by surviving family members when a death was caused by someone's wrongful act or neglect. For a family in the first weeks after losing someone, the law can feel like one more weight, and it helps to know its basic shape.

Section 13-21-203(1)(a) of the Colorado Revised Statutes provides that damages under section 13-21-202 "shall be sued for and recovered by the same parties and in the same manner as provided in section 13-21-201." Who those parties are, and in what order they may sue in the first year after the death and afterward, is set by those sections as currently in force. The statute also says "There shall be only one civil action under this part 2 for recovery of damages for the wrongful death of any one decedent," which matters when several relatives are grieving the same person.

The jury may give damages it deems "fair and just," including noneconomic damages "for grief, loss of companionship, pain and suffering, and emotional stress." For a wrongful death action filed on or after January 1, 2025, and before January 1, 2026, or a claim accruing on or after January 1, 2025, noneconomic recovery may not exceed two million one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars, unless the death "constitutes a felonious killing" as section 15-11-803 defines and determines it. Claims against a public entity or public employee are "controlled by the damage limitations set forth in section 24-10-114." The two-year wrongful death period in section 13-80-102 applies, as explained above.

Families often have questions about who may bring the action, how relatives share one claim and which dates apply. If those questions are pressing, a case evaluation is one way to talk them through.

Records That Can Help Show What Happened

Whether a claim can show duty, breach, causation and damages often comes down to ordinary records, and many of them are easiest to find soon after the accident. If you were hurt, the ones that usually matter include medical records describing the injury and treatment, photos and video of the scene, and any surveillance footage the park recorded. In a product case, the trampoline itself, its parts, and any purchase, rental or order records often matter. Incident reports made with the park or the homeowner, the names and contact details of witnesses, and a copy of any participation agreement or release are also commonly part of the picture. Families after a death often gather the same records, along with documents showing who the surviving relatives are. Bringing what exists to a conversation with an attorney helps show which theories and deadlines the facts support.