Maryland Trampoline Accident Lawyer

Why Maryland's Rules Differ, and What That Means for a Claim

Maryland state law decides most trampoline injury claims that arise here, and its rules on deadlines, fault and damages are its own. A rule from another state does not carry over; the pages on California trampoline accident law or the Texas trampoline accident lawyer page describe those states, not Maryland. If you have read about trampoline claims elsewhere, what you learned may not hold here.

If you are trying to understand whether a claim exists, it usually starts with one of three legal theories:

• Premises liability: whoever owns or controls a property can be responsible when an unsafe condition there causes an injury and the owner failed to take reasonable care.
• Negligent supervision: the people responsible for watching jumpers, such as park staff or an adult hosting children, failed to supervise with reasonable care.
• Product liability: the trampoline or a part of it was defective in its design, its manufacture or its warnings, and the defect caused the injury.

The theory decides who may be a defendant and what has to be shown. A premises claim looks at the property and its owner; a product claim looks at the equipment and the companies that made or sold it. Many incidents raise more than one theory. A person in this position may weigh what is known about the property, the supervision and the equipment, and a conversation with a trampoline accident lawyer Maryland families consult can help sort out which theory, or combination, fits the facts of a particular fall.

Trampoline Park or Backyard: How the Setting Shapes a Maryland Claim

The setting of the injury shapes the analysis from the start. A commercial trampoline park is a business that invites paying customers onto its courts, foam pits and dodgeball areas, and the questions there tend to involve the operator's rules, staffing, court design and maintenance. The site's page on trampoline park injury claims covers how those claims are built, and injuries in pits are discussed on the page about foam pit injuries. A backyard trampoline sits on a private home's property, where the owner is usually not running a business and the facts often turn on who was invited, who was watching and how the trampoline was set up.

Maryland has a recreational-use statute that can affect a landowner's duty. Section 5-1103 of the Natural Resources Article of the Maryland Code provides that, "except as specifically recognized by or provided in § 5-1106," an owner of land "owes no duty of care to keep the premises safe for entry or use by others for any recreational or educational purpose, or to give any warning of a dangerous condition." Section 5-1106 of the Natural Resources Article then says the subtitle does not limit liability for a "willful or malicious failure to guard or warn against a dangerous condition," or, except as provided in section 5-1109(a)(2), for injury "where the owner of the land charges the person" who enters for recreational or educational use; consideration paid for a lease of land to the State or a political subdivision is not a charge. Whether the statute reaches a given property depends on the facts, including whether anyone was charged.

For an injured person, this is what is at stake: if the statute applies, the owner may owe no ordinary duty of care, so whether an entry fee was paid can shape whether a premises claim exists at all.

Equipment failure raises a separate product liability path. Such a claim generally asks whether a defect existed and whether it caused the injury; a torn mat or a broken spring does not by itself prove either. For a Maryland trampoline park injury lawyer conversation or a backyard case, the first questions are usually where it happened and whether the equipment itself may have played a part.

Who May Be Responsible for Your Injury

Several kinds of parties can be involved in one trampoline accident, and each is judged by what the law asks of its role:

• A property owner, under a premises liability theory, owes a duty of care to people who come onto the property; whether that duty was met depends on the condition of the property and what the owner knew or should have known.
• An operator or management company that runs a park day to day may be asked about staffing, rules, supervision and inspections.
• A trampoline manufacturer or distributor may be asked, under a product liability theory, whether the equipment had a defect in design, manufacture or warnings, and whether that defect caused the harm.
• A maintenance contractor may be asked whether repairs or inspections were done with reasonable care.

For an injured person, naming the right party matters because each may carry different duties, insurance and defenses; a claim aimed only at the wrong one may leave a responsible party out. Records showing who owned the property, who operated the business, who sold or installed the equipment and who maintained it usually help sort this out, and a person may ask the park or seller for that information or raise it with an attorney.

Many parks ask patrons to sign a waiver or release, a written agreement that tries to give up some right to sue. How a Maryland court treats a particular document depends on Maryland's current law, the document's own terms and who signed it. The site's page on trampoline park waivers explains what such a document does and does not decide; it is one factor in the case, not the whole case.

How Maryland's Contributory Negligence Rule Can Affect Your Claim

Here is where Maryland stands apart, and where many families feel the most worry. Contributory negligence is a rule that a plaintiff whose own negligence contributed to the injury cannot recover. In Coleman v. Soccer Association of Columbia, filed July 9, 2013, the Court of Appeals of Maryland (now the Supreme Court of Maryland) addressed that rule, stating that "although this Court has the authority to change the common" law, it reached its holding on the doctrine. The opinion states that a plaintiff who contributes proximately to the injury "is barred from all recovery, regardless of the quantum of a defendant's primary" negligence.

This is a rule made by court decision, not by statute. The Court noted that it has the authority to change the common law, but it declined to do so and left any change to the General Assembly.

The practical effect is stark. Contributory negligence is a complete bar, not a reduction: under the rule as the Court stated it, a finding that the injured person's own negligence proximately contributed to the injury ends that person's recovery, however careless a defendant may have been. That is why the details of how a fall happened carry so much weight in Maryland, including what rules were posted, what staff said, how many people were on the court and what the jumper was doing. Whether any conduct by an adult or a child can be raised as contributory negligence depends on the facts and on Maryland law. A conversation with an attorney can help a person think through how those facts may be viewed before a claim is filed.

Filing Deadlines and the Notice Requirement That Can Affect Your Case

A statute of limitations is the law that sets the time to file a lawsuit. Section 5-101 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article of the Maryland Code provides: "A civil action at law shall be filed within three years from the date it accrues unless another provision of the Code provides a different period of time within which an action shall be commenced."

Children are treated differently. Section 5-201 of the same Article provides that when a cause of action subject to these limitations accrues in favor of a minor or mental incompetent, that person "shall file his action within the lesser of three years or the applicable period of limitations after the date the disability is removed." The section does not apply if the limitations period has more than three years to run when the disability is removed, and imprisonment, absence from the State or marriage are not disabilities that extend the period.

A trampoline court in a county recreation center or other local-government facility adds another rule. Under section 5-304 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, an action for unliquidated damages may not be brought against a local government or its employees unless written notice stating "the time, place, and cause of the injury" is given within one year after the injury. The notice is given in person or by certified mail, return receipt requested, with a United States Postal Service postmark, by the claimant or a representative; if the local government is a county, it goes to the county commissioners or county council. The section does not apply to actions against certain listed nonprofit corporations or actions under section 5-117, or if the local government had actual or constructive notice of the injury, or of the defect or circumstances causing it, within one year. A court may also entertain the suit without notice, on motion and for good cause shown, unless the defendant shows its defense was prejudiced. Claims against the State itself follow their own rules under Maryland's current law.

Whether a facility was government-owned or operated, and whether the injured person was a minor, both affect which of these rules applies. A person in this position may want to find out who owned or ran the facility and note the date of the injury, since those two facts point to which clock applies; an attorney can help confirm the timing.

What Compensation May Be Available, and How the Cap Can Limit It

Maryland law separates two kinds of losses. Financial losses, such as medical expenses and lost earnings, are often described as economic damages. Section 11-108 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article covers the other kind, noneconomic damages. In a personal-injury case, that means "pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, loss of consortium, or other nonpecuniary injury." In a wrongful-death case, it includes harms such as mental anguish, emotional pain and suffering, and loss of society, companionship, comfort, protection, care, attention, advice, counsel, training, guidance or education, among others. Punitive damages are not noneconomic damages under the definition.

The section caps noneconomic awards. For personal-injury causes of action arising on or after July 1, 1986, the cap was $350,000. For personal-injury or wrongful-death causes of action arising on or after October 1, 1994, an award "may not exceed $500,000," except as paragraph (3)(ii) of the subsection provides, and that limit "shall increase by $15,000 on October 1 of each year beginning on October 1, 1995," with each increased amount applying to causes of action arising between October 1 of that year and September 30 of the next. In plain terms, the cap that applies depends on when a cause of action arose.

For an injured person or a parent, this means that even if a jury values pain and suffering above the cap, the award for those harms may be limited by statute; the cap does not apply to economic losses as the definition describes them. Which damages the law may allow in any case depends on the injuries, their treatment and their effect on daily life, and on whether the claim succeeds at all. A person may weigh keeping track of bills, lost work and how the injury affects daily life, and may ask an attorney which cap year applies.

When a Trampoline Accident Is Fatal: Maryland Wrongful Death Claims

A family after a death is working inside a separate set of rules. A wrongful-death action is a claim brought because a person's death was caused by another's wrongful act. The first question for a grieving family is usually who may bring it. Under section 3-904 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, the action is, except as the statute provides, "for the benefit of the wife, husband, parent, and child of the deceased person." There are exceptions: a parent may not be a beneficiary in certain circumstances tied to listed crimes or acts, and a parent who caused a child's death may not benefit from an action allowed under section 5-806. Section 11-108 also refers to "secondary claimants" described in section 3-904, and which relatives fall into that group depends on the statute's full text. Any amount recovered is divided among the beneficiaries in shares directed by the verdict, subject to section 11-108.

The deadline is set in the same statute: except as it provides, an action "shall be filed within three years after the death of the injured person." For a death caused by an occupational disease, the action must be filed within 10 years of the death or within 3 years of when the cause of death was discovered, whichever is shorter.

For a family, what is at stake is both who shares in any recovery and how long the window stays open, and the noneconomic damages cap described above also reaches wrongful-death awards. A family may want to consider who qualifies as a beneficiary and the date the period began, and an attorney can help sort out where each relative stands. The site's page on trampoline head injuries describes how serious injuries of that kind are discussed in the law.

Records and Information That Often Matter in a Trampoline Injury Case

If you were hurt, the records that usually matter include medical records from the first visit onward, which document the injury and its treatment. Incident or accident reports, whether a park's own report or a police or emergency services record, often show who was present and what was written down at the time. Photographs and video of the court, the pit, the backyard and the equipment help show conditions as they were.

The trampoline or equipment itself can matter a great deal in a product liability question, along with its purchase receipt, manual and labels. Families often gather any written agreement, waiver or release that was signed, along with the names and contact details of witnesses, staff on duty and other parents.

These records matter because, in Maryland, they describe what happened, who controlled the property and equipment, and the facts a contributory negligence argument would turn on. Missing records can leave those questions open in a state where one finding can end a claim. If you would like to talk through what these records show about how the injury happened, you can request a case evaluation.