Illinois Trampoline Accident Lawyer

Which Illinois Legal Theories Fit Your Trampoline Injury

Where the injury happened shapes which claims may be open to you, and who may answer for it. Three theories usually come into play.

Premises liability concerns the duty a person or business that controls property owes to people who come onto it. At a trampoline park, the question centers on the operator and the condition of the courts, pads, pits and walkways. In a backyard, it centers on the homeowner.

Product liability covers claims that a product was defective and that the defect caused an injury, such as a faulty frame, mat, spring cover or net enclosure. Illinois statutes refer to "product liability based on strict tort liability," meaning the focus is on the product's defect rather than anyone's carelessness.

Negligent supervision is a claim that staff or an operator failed to enforce the rules or watch jumpers with reasonable care, such as when too many people share one court.

For backyard injuries, one statute can decide whether a homeowner owed you any duty at all. Under section 3 of the Recreational Use of Land and Water Areas Act, except as section 6 provides, "an owner of land owes no duty of care to keep the premises safe for entry or use by any person for recreational or conservation purposes, or to give any warning of a natural or artificial dangerous condition, use, structure, or activity on such premises to persons entering for such purposes." Section 6 of the same Act keeps liability that otherwise exists in two situations: a "willful and wanton failure to guard or warn against a dangerous condition, use, structure, or activity," and an injury where the owner "invites, as defined in subsection (f) of Section 2 of this Act, or charges" the people who come onto the land for recreational use.

For someone hurt at a trampoline park, the charge exception is central. A park that sells admission charges people who enter. A homeowner who lets neighbors' children jump for free is in a different position. Whether the Act applies depends on the facts, including how section 2 defines an invitation.

Scenarios That Arise at Trampoline Parks and on Backyard Trampolines

At a commercial park, accidents often involve falls onto a frame or hard surface, collisions between jumpers of different sizes, foam pit landings, worn or torn equipment, or stretches when no staff member seemed to be watching. These facts can raise premises, supervision and product questions together. The site's pages on foam pit injuries and trampoline head injuries look more closely at those injuries.

In a backyard, a bent frame, broken spring, failed net or torn mat can point toward the companies that made or sold the product. The owner's role is a separate question: if the owner charged nothing, the Recreational Use Act may affect what duty was owed, though willful and wanton conduct falls outside that limit.

Commercial parks usually ask patrons or parents to sign a waiver or release, agreeing to give up some claims in advance. Under Illinois law, its effect depends on its words, who signed it, the facts of the injury and the Illinois authority that applies. This page does not treat it as settling a claim either way. The site's page on trampoline park waivers explains how these documents are built.

Who Can Be Held Responsible for a Trampoline Injury, and Why It Changes the Deadline

Who may answer for a trampoline injury depends on who controlled the place, who supplied the equipment and what went wrong:

• A park's operator, and the building or land owner if different, in a premises-liability or negligent-supervision claim.
• The manufacturer, distributor or seller of a trampoline or its parts. Section 13-213 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure defines a product liability action as "any action based on any theory or doctrine brought against the seller of a product" for personal injury or other damage, reaching claims about design, manufacture, assembly, installation, labeling, warnings and instructions, among other things.
• A private homeowner, subject to the recreational-use limits where they apply.
• A local government entity that runs the facility, such as a recreation center.

The type of defendant can change the deadline. Under section 8-101 of the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act, no civil action, other than the patient-care actions in its subsection (b), may be started "against a local entity or any of its employees for any injury unless it is commenced within one year from the date that the injury was received or the cause of action accrued." "Civil action" includes any action based on the common law, the statutes or the Illinois Constitution.

What this means in practice: a person who assumes a public recreation center is covered by the two-year rule could find that half of that time does not exist, and a claim against the wrong party may not reach the one actually responsible. The first practical step is usually identifying who ran the facility, who owned the property, and the trampoline's brand, model and seller, because those facts often decide which of these rules come into play.

Illinois Fault Rules and What They Mean for a Trampoline Claim

"Was it partly my fault?" is a question many injured jumpers and parents ask. Illinois answers it with comparative fault.

Section 2-1116 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure applies to actions for bodily injury or death based on negligence, or on product liability based on strict tort liability. It provides that "the plaintiff shall be barred from recovering damages if the trier of fact finds that the contributory fault on the part of the plaintiff is more than 50% of the proximate cause of the injury." If the plaintiff's fault is not more than 50 percent, "any damages allowed shall be diminished in the proportion to the amount of fault attributable to the plaintiff."

In plain words, a person found 30 percent at fault would recover 70 percent of proven damages. A person found 51 percent at fault would recover nothing. At exactly 50 percent, the bar does not apply and damages are reduced by half.

The judge or jury decides fault from the circumstances, such as whether a jumper ignored posted rules or tried a flip, whether a child was left unsupervised, whether staff enforced court limits, and whether the equipment was defective. A child's age can also come into it.

If you are trying to understand how your own conduct, or your child's, might be weighed against an operator's or a manufacturer's, a conversation with our attorney can help you sort through those questions.

How Illinois Filing Deadlines Apply to a Trampoline Injury Claim

A statute of limitations sets how long a person has to file. Missing it can end a claim no matter how strong the facts are, which is why the deadline is often the first question worth settling. Illinois has several that can apply.

The general two-year rule. Section 13-202 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure provides: "Actions for damages for an injury to the person... shall be commenced within 2 years next after the cause of action accrued." Its exceptions exclude damages from first degree murder or a Class X felony when the perpetrator is convicted; set a two-year period from the establishment of an escrow account under the Criminal Victims' Escrow Account Act for claims against the person in whose name it was established; and toll the period in certain compelled-confession cases, though that provision does not apply to local governments under the Tort Immunity Act. For most trampoline injuries, those exceptions are unlikely to be the focus; the two-year period is the starting point.

A child's claim. Section 13-211 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that if the injured person was under 18, or under a legal disability, when the claim accrued, "he or she may bring the action within 2 years after the person attains the age of 18 years, or the disability is removed." If a disability begins later, before the period runs, the period is stayed until the disability is removed. In plain terms, a child's own claim does not run out while the child is young.

A government-run facility. The one-year period in section 8-101 applies, running from the date the injury was received or the claim accrued.

Defective equipment. Section 13-213 also sets a statute of repose, an outer limit measured from the product's sale or delivery rather than the injury. The page marks one version of the section, the one with the P.A. 89-7 changes, as held unconstitutional. The version in force covers actions based on strict liability in tort. Subject to its exceptions, it requires such an action within 12 years from the first sale, lease or delivery of possession by a seller, or within 10 years from the first sale, lease or delivery of possession to the initial user, whichever expires earlier. For an injury claimed to come from a product's alteration, modification or change, the action must be brought within the applicable limitation period and, in any event, within 10 years from the date of the change, unless the defendant warranted the product for longer and the action is brought within that period. This means an older trampoline can raise a time problem even when the injury is recent.

Which period applies, and when it started, depends on the facts. Pinning down the injury date, the injured person's age, who ran the facility and when the trampoline was bought is usually the next step in working out which clock is running.

What Records Can Support or Weaken Your Trampoline Claim

A claim turns on proof of duty, breach, causation and damages, and on the fault comparison above. Records that are lost or never gathered can leave a question unanswered. Those that typically matter include:

• medical records showing the injury, treatment and expected course;
• photographs and video of the court, equipment, landing area and injury, including any facility surveillance footage;
• the trampoline or part, its model and serial number, purchase records, and any maintenance or inspection logs;
• incident reports and any police or emergency-services reports;
• witness names and contact details;
• any participation agreement, release or waiver signed at the facility.

Footage may show how a collision happened or whether staff were present. The product and its paperwork bear on the defect question and on the repose period. Medical records bear on damages. An incident report records what someone wrote down; it does not establish what caused the injury. Families often keep a copy of any signed agreement, whatever it turns out to mean. The site's page on trampoline park injury claims explains how these elements fit together.

Wrongful Death After a Trampoline Accident in Illinois

When a trampoline accident ends in a death, a family faces grief and legal questions at the same moment.

Under section 2 of the Illinois Wrongful Death Act, the action is brought by and in the names of the personal representatives of the deceased person, "for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse and next of kin." Family members do not bring it in their own names.

The section refers to injuries resulting from the death, "including damages for grief, sorrow, and mental suffering, and punitive damages when applicable," to the surviving spouse and next of kin. Punitive damages are not available against the State, a unit of local government, or an employee of either in an official capacity. A beneficiary's damages are reduced in proportion to that beneficiary's own contributory fault, where that fault is not more than 50 percent of the proximate cause of the death.

Except as subsection (e) provides, "every such action shall be commenced within 2 years after the death." Subsection (e) sets longer periods for a violent intentional act or certain listed crimes, extending the period "only against the individual who allegedly committed a violent intentional act or was the defendant charged with a crime listed in this subsection." It does not extend the period against a park, a manufacturer or any other person or entity.

A family may also be weighing who serves as personal representative, how the one-year local-entity period applies to a government-run facility, and which relatives count as next of kin.