Have you or someone you know been injured on a trampoline?  Was someone injured on YOUR trampoline?  When would a homeowner be liable for injuring someone using his or her trampoline?

 

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Video Transcript

Hello, this is Darrell Castle. I’m an attorney licensed to practice law in the state of Tennessee and on this video, I’m talking about trampolines, and specifically injuries that might be caused by the use of trampolines.

When would a homeowner be liable for injuring someone using his or her trampoline? Well, there are two situations that we need to think about. One is, is the homeowner negligent? And the other is, did the injured person assume the risk of injury?

How could a homeowner be negligent for someone using his trampoline? Well it would normally be a child and the homeowner could be negligent for leaving the trampoline unprotected – that is an attractive nuisance. Attractive – the child goes into the yard and uses the trampoline without permission but unknown to the homeowner.

The homeowner might be charged with putting up a fence to keep the person out from using the trampoline, like if you had a swimming pool. Same type of theory.

The second situation might be negligent maintenance. In other words, the homeowner has a trampoline that’s not maintained properly. The springs are rusting, they’re not hooked up to the canvas or the canvas is torn or something like that. Or there’s no protective guard around the trampoline.

The third might be negligent supervision. In other words, the homeowner lets children on the trampoline without properly supervising or allows more than one child to use the trampoline at once.

Those are all situations that might happen.

As far as assumption of risks, a child is not negligent. A child can’t be negligent here in the state of Tennessee. But a child can assume risks. In other words, let’s say that you had a child that the homeowner and the child’s parents told them “Don’t use that trampoline – don’t go on there.” The child saw it and he went anyway.

That might be a situation where the child could be said to assume the risks that he would be injured.

We had a case like this just recently in my law firm and we were able to recover a substantial amount for the injured person, but trampoline cases can be difficult and you need an experienced attorney to handle them.

If you’ve been injured by one, you should seek legal council and do it right away.