Maine Trampoline Accident Lawyer

Maine's Legal Framework for Trampoline Injury Claims

The starting point for timing is section 752 of title 14 of the Maine Revised Statutes. It provides that "All civil actions shall be commenced within 6 years after the cause of action accrues and not afterwards," except actions on a court judgment or decree "and except as otherwise specially provided." A statute of limitations is a law that sets the time limit for starting a lawsuit. The clock runs from when the cause of action accrues, and another Maine statute can set a different period for a particular kind of claim. In practice, the six-year figure is a general rule, and not every claim has that long.

Trampoline injury claims usually rest on one or more legal theories. Premises liability is the responsibility of a person who owns or controls property for unsafe conditions there. Negligent supervision is a claim that someone responsible for watching jumpers, such as park staff or an adult host, failed to use reasonable care. Product liability is responsibility for a defective product, such as a trampoline frame, spring or net that fails. Comparative fault is the rule for how a court divides responsibility when the injured person also bears some blame.

The theory that fits depends on where the accident happened, what failed and who was in charge. Because the accident happened in Maine, Maine's rules govern, not those of the state where a company is based or where the reader now lives. This page does not state a separate product-liability time limit or a general cap on personal-injury damages for Maine. Which theories the facts match, and whether any special rule changes the time period, is something a conversation with an attorney can help sort out.

Where You Were Hurt: Trampoline Parks, Backyards and Equipment Failures

The setting changes the legal questions, and so it changes what a claim may look like. At a commercial trampoline park, a business invites paying customers onto its premises and runs the courts, foam pits, dodgeball areas and staff. Claims there often involve premises liability and negligent supervision: how the courts were maintained, how jumpers of different sizes were separated, and whether staff were watching. Park injuries, including foam pit injuries, are explained in more depth in the site's overview of trampoline park injury claims.

A backyard trampoline is different. The defendant is usually a homeowner, a renter or a landlord, and questions turn on who allowed jumping, whether an adult was present, and the condition of the trampoline and the ground around it.

Maine also has a recreational-use law. Section 159-A of title 14 of the Maine Revised Statutes provides that an owner, lessee, manager, holder of an easement or occupant of premises "does not have a duty of care to keep the premises safe for entry or use by others for recreational or harvesting activities." The section defines those activities as "recreational activities conducted out-of-doors," with a list that includes hiking, camping, biking and swimming among others, and states that the limited duty does not apply to "a willful or malicious failure to guard or to warn against a dangerous condition." Whether this section reaches a particular trampoline injury, and whether any exception in it applies, depends on the facts and the full text of the section. For someone hurt outdoors on another person's property, this law can matter a great deal to whether a claim moves forward.

If the injury came from the equipment itself, such as a torn mat, a snapped spring or a collapsed enclosure net, product-liability questions may arise about how the equipment was designed, made or labeled. A failure on its own does not establish a defect; what the evidence shows decides that. The practical consequence is that the setting can open or narrow the paths to a claim, so the first things worth pinning down are whether the place was a business, a private yard or an outdoor area, and whether the equipment that failed has been kept.

Who Answers for Your Trampoline Injury in Maine

More than one party may be involved in a single injury, and each has a different duty.

At a commercial park, the operator controls the premises and its staff, so the questions usually concern maintenance, rules, staffing and supervision. At a private home, the owner or occupant, including a landlord where the lease or the property gives control, faces premises-liability questions about the yard and the trampoline, subject to how section 159-A treats the setting. If the equipment failed, a manufacturer faces product-liability questions about design, manufacture and warnings, and a seller or distributor may face questions about the product it passed along. If a host or party organizer was watching children, that adult may face negligent-supervision questions.

More than one party can share responsibility for the same injury. Section 156 of title 14 of the Maine Revised Statutes provides that "In a case involving multiparty defendants, each defendant is jointly and severally liable to the plaintiff for the full amount of the plaintiff's damages," and that any defendant may ask the jury, through special interrogatories, for "the percentage of fault contributed by each defendant." The section also sets rules for what happens when one defendant is released by agreement and dismissed from the case. For an injured person, that means a settlement with one party can affect the claims against the others.

What is at stake is that a party left out early may be hard to bring in later. Families often find the list of possible defendants is longer than it first appears, and a conversation with an attorney can start with who owned the property, who ran it, who was supervising, and who made or sold the trampoline.

What Happens to Your Claim If You Were Also at Fault

Fault is one of the first worries after a jumping injury: was that flip a mistake, or was a child playing too rough? Section 156 of title 14 sets out how Maine handles that. When a person "suffers death or damage as a result partly of that person's own fault and partly of the fault of any other person," the claim "may not be defeated by reason of the fault of the person suffering the damage," but the damages "must be reduced to such extent as the jury thinks just and equitable having regard to the claimant's share in the responsibility."

The section then adds a firm line: "If such claimant is found by the jury to be equally at fault, the claimant may not recover." In plain words, if the jury decides the injured person was just as responsible as the other side, the claim fails.

The jury records the total damages as if the claimant had not been at fault, then reduces that total "by dollars and cents, and not by percentage," and returns both amounts, with the lesser figure as the final verdict. The section defines fault to include negligence, breach of a statutory duty and other acts or omissions that give rise to tort liability.

Signed documents often come up in this same conversation. A waiver or release is a written agreement, often signed at a park's front desk or online, in which a patron agrees to give up certain claims. How a Maine court treats a particular participation agreement or release depends on Maine law and the facts; it is not answered here in general terms. The site's page on trampoline park waivers explains what these documents typically contain. Many people keep a copy of the form and write down what happened while it is fresh, since how conduct is described often looks different once all the facts are on the table.

Filing Deadlines and Notice Requirements Under Maine Law

Three Maine statutes shape the timing of a trampoline injury claim. The first is the six-year period in section 752 of title 14, described above.

The second concerns minors and others under a legal disability. Section 853 of title 14 of the Maine Revised Statutes provides that if a person entitled to bring an action under sections 752 to 754 and the other listed sections "is a minor, mentally ill, imprisoned or without the limits of the United States when the cause of action accrues, the action may be brought within the times limited herein after the disability is removed." For a child hurt on a trampoline, that means the time limit is measured from when the disability is removed rather than from the day of the accident.

The third is the Maine Tort Claims Act notice rule, which applies to claims against the State or a political subdivision, such as a town that runs a recreation facility. Section 8107 of title 14 of the Maine Revised Statutes requires that within 365 days after the claim accrues, "or at a later time within the limits of section 8110," when the claimant shows good cause why notice could not reasonably have been filed in time, the claimant or the claimant's personal representative or attorney file a written notice. The notice contents include the name and address of the claimant and of any attorney or representative. Notice of a claim against the State goes to the responsible state agency and the Attorney General; notice of a claim against a political subdivision goes to a person who could be served under Rule 4 of the Maine Rules of Civil Procedure. If the claimant is a minor, a relative, attorney or agent may file, and "the notice may be presented within 365 days of the minor's attaining 18 years of age." The section defines good cause to include certain contacts by the government's claims officials or insurer that imply coverage.

This notice period is much shorter than six years. If a town, school or state facility owned or ran the place where the injury happened, the 365-day notice rule can matter even while the six-year window is still open. A case evaluation can help talk through which of these rules applies to the setting and the injured person's age.

Wrongful Death After a Trampoline Accident in Maine

When a trampoline accident takes a life, Maine law treats the claim in its own way. Section 2-807 of title 18-C of the Maine Revised Statutes makes a person or corporation liable when death is "caused by a wrongful act, neglect or default" that would have allowed the injured person to sue had they lived. Wrongful death is the name for that claim.

The section requires that every wrongful-death action "be brought by and in the name of the personal representative or special administrator of the deceased person." The family does not bring it directly. After funeral expenses and the costs of recovery, including attorney's fees, the amount is distributed to the heirs under Maine's intestacy laws, outside the probate estate, except as the section provides.

The section allows damages that are "fair and just compensation with reference to the pecuniary injuries resulting from the death," and damages payable to the estate for reasonable medical, surgical and hospital care and reasonable funeral expenses where the jury or a settlement specifically allocates them. It allows damages "not exceeding $1,000,000 adjusted for inflation as provided in section 1-108" for loss of comfort, society and companionship, including related emotional distress, and punitive damages "not exceeding $500,000." These limits are stated for wrongful-death actions.

The action "must be commenced within 3 years after the decedent's death," except that where the death is caused by a homicide, it may be commenced within six years of the date the personal representative or special administrator discovers a just cause of action against the person who caused it. For a grieving family, the first questions are often who will serve as personal representative and when the death occurred.

Records That Can Help Show What Happened to You

The records an injured person or family already holds may shape how the claim is understood. Medical care comes first: emergency and hospital records, imaging, follow-up visits and therapy notes. For head injuries in particular, the treatment history often shapes the case, as the site's page on trampoline head injuries explains.

Beyond medical records, families often keep incident or accident reports made at a park, photographs and video of the scene and the equipment, and the names and contact details of witnesses, including other parents and staff. In a backyard case, the trampoline itself, its labels and its parts can matter, along with receipts or purchase records showing where and when it was bought.

Written agreements signed at a commercial facility, such as a participation agreement or release, are part of the record too, along with any posted rules or tickets. What effect such a document has under Maine law depends on its wording and the facts. Records showing whether a public entity owned or ran the facility can matter because of the notice rule in section 8107 of title 14. The consequence is practical: equipment that is thrown away or a report that is never obtained can be hard to recover later, so gathering what exists now and bringing it to a first conversation with an attorney keeps those options open.