Missouri Trampoline Accident Lawyer

Which Legal Theory May Fit What Happened to You

If you are trying to understand whether an injury could support a claim, the answer usually starts with one of three legal theories, and the one that fits shapes who may be responsible and what has to be shown.

Premises liability is the body of law about what a person or business that controls property owes to people who come onto it. At a trampoline park, the questions it raises include how the courts were built, padded, maintained and arranged, and whether hazards were addressed or warned about. The exact duty a Missouri property owner owes a paying customer, a guest or a trespasser depends on Missouri's current law as its courts apply it.

Product liability is the law that applies when a product itself, such as a trampoline frame, a mat, springs, a safety net or a foam pit component, is claimed to be defective. Missouri has a specific statute on fault in these claims, section 537.765 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri, discussed in the fault section below.

Negligent supervision is a claim that the people responsible for watching an activity, such as park staff or court monitors, did not take reasonable care in how they supervised it. It often comes up when jumpers of different sizes share a court, when rules are not enforced, or when a monitor is absent.

An injury alone does not show that anyone did something wrong. Under each theory, the questions are whether someone owed you a duty, whether it was breached, whether that breach caused your injury, and what harm followed. For you, that means the setting, the equipment and who was in charge at the moment of the accident are usually where the answer starts. Our general page on trampoline park injury claims walks through these elements in more depth.

Park or Backyard: How the Setting Changes Your Questions

When a jumper is hurt at a commercial trampoline park in Missouri, the injury often traces to a fall onto a frame or between pads, a collision with another jumper, a dodgeball or ninja-course feature, an equipment failure, or a gap in supervision. These settings usually raise premises liability and negligent supervision questions, and product liability questions where a piece of equipment is involved. Landings in a pit can raise their own issues, covered on our page about foam pit injuries.

A backyard trampoline is different because the setting is private land, and Missouri has a statute that speaks directly to some recreational use of land. Section 537.346 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri provides that, "Except as provided in sections 537.345 to 537.348, and section 537.351, an owner of land owes no duty of care to any person who enters on the land without charge to keep his or her land safe for recreational use or to give any general or specific warning with respect to any natural or artificial condition, structure, or personal property thereon."

Two parts of that sentence carry a lot of weight. The rule is limited to a person who enters "without charge," and it applies except as the related sections it names, sections 537.345 to 537.348 and section 537.351, provide. A second subsection says no owner is liable for injuries of a trespasser on his or her "residential area or noncovered land," as section 537.348 defines those terms, if that land is next to a park or trail as Missouri law defines them and the trespasser came from that park or trail.

If your injury happened in a backyard, this statute can decide whether the owner owed any duty at all, so whether anyone was charged, why you were there, and what the related sections provide can matter a great deal. A paid trampoline park visit is a different setting from a free one.

Who May Be Responsible for Your Trampoline Injury

If you are wondering who could answer for an injury, the possible parties fall into a few categories, and each is measured by a different theory.

A trampoline park operator, and in some cases a separate owner of the building, may be looked at under premises liability and negligent supervision. The questions concern how the space was designed and kept, what rules were posted and enforced, and how staff were trained and positioned.

A manufacturer, distributor or seller of a trampoline or its parts may be looked at under product liability, where the question is whether a product was defective and whether that defect caused the injury. In these claims, section 537.765 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri governs how the injured person's own fault is treated.

A private homeowner or other landowner may be looked at under premises liability, subject to the recreational-use rule of section 537.346 where it applies.

More than one category can be involved in a single accident, for example a park and the maker of a component that failed there. Describing these categories is not a statement that any business acted wrongly. For you, the practical point is that naming the wrong party, or overlooking one, can change which rules apply to your claim. The details that tend to matter are who owned the equipment, who maintained it, and who was supervising when the injury happened.

What a Signed Waiver Does and Does Not Decide

On March 4, 2025, the Supreme Court of Missouri, sitting en banc, issued an opinion in No. SC100512 about a release signed at an Urban Air trampoline park in Missouri. It is a Missouri state court decision, not a federal case, and it states Missouri law only.

A participation agreement (often called a waiver or release) is the document a park asks a guest, or a parent for a child, to sign before jumping. The agreement in that case contained an arbitration section. Arbitration means a dispute is decided by a private arbitrator instead of a judge or jury. That section covered disputes about "personal injury (including death)" and "the scope, arbitrability, or validity of this arbitration agreement," to be settled by binding arbitration before a single arbitrator administered by the American Arbitration Association.

The language sending questions of "scope, arbitrability, or validity" to the arbitrator is called a delegation clause. The Court held that because that clause was not specifically challenged, it was presumed valid and enforceable, so the challenges raised, including to the signer's authority and to whether the release reached beyond the day it was signed, were for the arbitrator, "not a court." The Court vacated the circuit court's order and remanded for the circuit court to sustain the park's motion to compel arbitration.

What the Court did not decide matters just as much. It did not decide whether the release of liability bars the injury claim, whether a parent's signature binds the child, or whether the park did anything wrong. Its footnote says that nothing in the opinion "should be taken as suggesting how the arbitrator should rule" on those challenges.

If you signed one, the questions that usually come up are what it says about arbitration, who signed, and when. Our page on trampoline park waivers explains how these documents are built.

Filing Deadlines Under Missouri Law and What Changes When a Child Is Hurt

A statute of limitations is the time limit for starting a lawsuit, and a claim filed after it runs can be lost no matter how strong it is.

Section 516.120 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri provides that, within five years, an action may be brought "for any other injury to the person or rights of another, not arising on contract and not herein otherwise enumerated." When that period begins in a given case, and whether another Missouri statute governs a particular claim instead, depends on Missouri's current law applied to the facts.

When the injured person is a child, section 516.170 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri changes the timing. Except as section 516.105 provides, if a person entitled to bring an action was "within the age of twenty-one years, or mentally incapacitated" when the cause of action accrued, that person may bring the action within the respective times limited "after such disability is removed." The same rule applies to a person who was mentally incapacitated at that time.

Wrongful-death actions have their own period. Section 537.100 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri requires every action under section 537.080 to be commenced "within three years after the cause of action shall accrue." Its exceptions are covered in the wrongful death section below.

These rules can point in different directions in one family, for example a child's own injury claim and a parent's related questions. This page cannot say how much time remains in any situation. If timing is the question on your mind, a conversation with our attorney can help sort out which Missouri period may apply to what happened and when.

How Your Own Conduct Is Weighed in a Product Claim

Comparative fault is the idea that an injured person's own share of fault is weighed against what others did. Missouri has a statute that applies this idea to products liability claims specifically.

Section 537.765 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri abolishes contributory fault "as a complete bar to plaintiff's recovery in a products liability claim" and applies "the doctrine of pure comparative fault." A defendant may plead and prove the plaintiff's fault, and any fault chargeable to the plaintiff "shall diminish proportionately the amount awarded as compensatory damages but shall not bar recovery."

The statute limits "fault" to six things: failing to use the product as reasonably anticipated by the manufacturer; using it for a purpose the manufacturer did not intend; using it knowing of a danger, with reasonable appreciation of the consequences, and voluntarily and unreasonably facing that danger; unreasonably failing to appreciate the danger or its consequences and unreasonably facing it; failing to take the precautions a reasonably careful user would take against dangers he would reasonably appreciate; and failing to mitigate damages.

That matters to a jumper who did a flip, or a parent who wonders whether a child's use of a backyard trampoline will be held against the claim. In a products liability claim, the statute treats such conduct as reducing an award, not ending the claim. This rule is stated here only for products liability claims; how fault works in other Missouri negligence claims depends on Missouri's current law.

Compensatory damages are the money a court may award for losses a person suffered. Whether any are available, which categories apply and in what amount all depend on the proof.

Wrongful Death Claims After a Fatal Trampoline Accident in Missouri

For a family after a death, Missouri's statute frames who may bring the action and when.

Wrongful death is a claim the law allows when a death results from conduct that would have entitled the person to recover damages had they lived. Section 537.080 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri provides that the party who would have been liable "shall be liable in an action for damages, notwithstanding the death of the person injured." The people who may sue include, in its first class, "the spouse or children or the surviving lineal descendants of any deceased children, natural or adopted, legitimate or illegitimate, or by the father or mother of the deceased, natural or adoptive." The statute lists further classes as well. It also provides that "only one action may be brought under this section against any one defendant for the death of any one person."

Because only one action is allowed per defendant for one death, if you are a family member, how the family's claim is brought can affect everyone who may be entitled to recover.

Section 537.100 sets the three-year period after the cause of action accrues, with exceptions stated in the same section. Time a defendant is absent from Missouri, so that personal service cannot be had in the state, is not counted. If a timely action ends in a nonsuit, an arrested judgment, or a judgment reversed on appeal, the plaintiff may commence a new action within one year. Service made after the limitation period or any extension has expired must be made within one hundred eighty days of filing the petition, or the court dismisses the action against that defendant, with prejudice if the plaintiff previously took or suffered a nonsuit.

The annotations on the official page of section 537.080 summarize a 1992 Supreme Court of Missouri decision holding that damages the person incurred before death, "such as medical expenses and pain and suffering," are recoverable as part of the wrongful-death claim. Whether any family member may bring an action depends on the facts and the full statute.

Records That May Help Show What Happened

Each legal theory above asks for proof, and if you were hurt, the records gathered after an accident are often how duty, breach, causation and harm get shown. Records that are lost or never kept can leave those questions harder to answer.

The records that usually matter include medical records and bills, from the first emergency visit through later treatment. For head injuries in particular, the course of care can be central, as our page on trampoline head injuries explains.

Photographs and video of the court, the backyard trampoline, padding, nets and the area around them often matter, as does any footage of the moment itself. In a product liability claim, the trampoline or the part that failed, with the receipt or order history, is often central to whether a defect can be shown.

Families also often keep a copy of the participation agreement, any incident report the park prepared, and the names and contact details of witnesses, staff on duty and other parents present. For a child, a record of school or activity missed can show how the injury changed daily life.

None of this decides a claim on its own. It is the material against which Missouri's rules, from section 537.765 to section 537.346, are applied.