Who is responsible for Trampoline Park Injuries? Does the waiver release the park of liability?
If Trampoline Park Injuries occur, can you sue if you signed the waiver?
A trampoline park can be a fun place to have a party for a child’s birthday, meet your friends for an activity that involves more than just sitting around, go on a date with your significant other or take your loved ones for a family outing. But before you are allowed to use any of a trampoline park’s facilities or equipment, you are almost always required to sign a waiver of some sort. The specific terms used vary from waiver to waiver and facility to facility, but every waiver’s objective is to keep you from suing the facility or anyone associated with it for any injuries you suffer while you are using the facility.
If you or one of your children has suffered trampoline park injuries, follow these tips to ensure you put yourself in a position to recover maximum compensation from each one of the responsible parties:
Make Sure One of the Trampoline Park’s Employees Fills Out an Incident Report
This is the first piece of documentation you will need to support your claim, and it is one of the most important documents you will have. After the accident, find someone who works at the facility and ask them to write out an incident report. They should have a standardized form with fields that can be filled in. If they do not, the person to whom you report the accident should record, at a minimum, the accident’s date and time, your account of what happened, and accounts of what happened from any witnesses who saw the accident or its aftermath. Review the report to make sure it gives an accurate representation of how the accident happened and which body parts you believe you have injured. If it needs to be amended, make sure this happens before you leave the facility. When you are satisfied with what the report says, ask the person who prepared it to give you a copy and if they refuse to do so, take a photograph of the report with your cellular phone. You will need to keep it for your file.
Seek Immediate Medical Treatment for All of Your Trampoline Park Injuries
This is likely the most crucial step of the entire trampoline injury claim process. When you believe you have been injured, you absolutely must not wait to have a medical professional examine you. Your own health and well-being should be your top priority. Some signs of injury may take days or weeks to appear, and by then your injuries may have significantly worsened or become irreversible to some extent. If you are able, you should take yourself to your doctor’s office or a nearby hospital’s emergency department to be examined. If you cannot or think you should not transport yourself, call an ambulance to pick you up and take you to the hospital. You will likely undergo some testing there, and you may need surgery if your injuries are severe enough.
Keep a File with All the Documents Related to Your Trampoline Park Injury Claim
As you may have gleaned from what you have read so far, documentation is vitally important in every trampoline park injury claim. Without it, even the best trampoline park injury lawyer will face an uphill battle in attempting to prove your case to the insurance companies or to a jury. You should retain copies of all the documents related to your claim, but be sure you take special care to preserve the incident report from the accident, along with copies of your medical records, medical bills, the waiver you signed at the trampoline park, and pictures of all the injuries you suffered. Try to get pictures of the area where the accident occurred, too. You will need all this evidence throughout your case. Making sure you keep it all in one place from the outset will save you and your attorney the hassle and expense of having to track it down and gather it later.
Read the Whole Waiver Closely, Then Read the Whole Waiver Again
When you sign a waiver, you may be releasing the entities and personnel the waiver covers from liability for certain types of claims. This does not mean you cannot file a trampoline park lawsuit, though. Pay close attention to the waiver’s details. It could be completed invalidated if, for example, the facility was understaffed, the trampolines and other equipment were in disrepair, the facility was too crowded or the park’s patrons were exposed to unreasonably dangerous conditions. This type of behavior can lead to a variety of catastrophic injuries and often amounts to gross negligence. Victims of such negligence have a right to seek compensation for the injuries they sustain, regardless of whether they signed a waiver. If the insurance companies try to intimidate you and deny your injury claim based solely on the fact that you signed a waiver before you used the trampoline park’s equipment, do not think all is lost. Your injuries will speak for themselves, and you should continue to pursue the claim. Once you get to this point, you may want to start looking for a lawyer who will represent you.
Know When You Need to Call a Lawyer to File a Trampoline Park Lawsuit
Eventually, if the insurance companies are giving you the runaround and making settlement offers that demonstrate they have dramatically undervalued your case, it will be beneficial for you to contact a trampoline park injury lawyer like the attorneys at the Bodden & Bennett Law Group. Retaining an experienced lawyer to represent you in your trampoline park injury claim will let the insurance companies know they should take your claim seriously, value your injuries fairly and treat you with the type of respect you deserve. An experienced attorney will guide you through the trampoline park lawsuit process and deal directly with the insurance companies so you can focus on everything else you have going on in your life. Save yourself a great deal of stress and let a professional handle your case for you. You will be happy you did.
