A trip to the amusement park can be quite a fun experience for everyone from young children to adults who remain children at heart. Unfortunately, amusement parks aren’t always safe environments. Sometimes roller coasters, bumper cars, water rides, and various other amusement park attractions can put someone at risk of injury. The harm done can range from a relatively minor scratch or bruise to death.
This guide offers a general overview of the subject, helping you better understand just how common amusement park accidents are, what types of injuries people typically sustain at amusement parks, and how you might pursue legal action if you were ever to have this type of experience.
Statistical data about the frequency of amusement park accidents can vary from one year to another, as well as one study to another. That said, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in 2016, amusement park accidents resulted in approximately 30,000 injuries. That may be significantly more than most people would assume. Additionally, it’s sadly not uncommon for amusement park accidents to cause deaths. Due to the nature of amusement parks, which often attract a younger demographic, about half of those injured at these locations in any given year are often children.
Amusement park rides can potentially put guests at risk of many different types of harm. However, certain types of amusement park injuries are particularly common. They include:
Just as the types of injuries people sustain at amusement parks vary on a case-by-case basis, so do the causes. In general, though, causes may typically include:
Mechanical issues: It’s extremely important that amusement park owners properly maintain their rides and attractions. Of course, they don’t always take this responsibility as seriously as they should. In such cases, mechanical failures may occur, which can lead to injury for those on the rides.
Faulty operation: Even a ride that has been properly maintained can still harm people. This may happen if, for instance, the person operating the ride does so unsafely. An example of this might be an operator stopping the ride abruptly.
Passenger negligence: It’s worth noting that amusement park injuries aren’t always the result of negligence on the part of owners or employees. It’s also crucial that guests heed all safety warnings. Sometimes, injuries occur when guests fail to use safety restraints properly, stand up in the middle of a ride, try to retrieve lost items dangerously close to a ride while it’s in operation, etc.
The ride’s nature: There are also instances when no error contributes to an injury. The ride is in proper condition, the operator was doing their job responsibly, and riders took all recommended safety steps. Despite this, the very nature of a ride can sometimes put people at risk of harm regardless. For example, a ride that involves very fast movements can cause dizziness or headache in many. In some cases, these symptoms are linked to an actual injury.
Naturally, the government is sometimes involved in regulating amusement park rides, although perhaps not to the extent that you might think. Specifically, the CPSC can only regulate certain types of rides: mobile ones.
Some amusement park rides are considered “fixed” attractions. That means, in normal circumstances, they remain in one location, and may only be moved in rare instances when changes to a park’s layout (or similar adjustments) necessitate doing so. Other rides travel from one location to another. This is common among carnival rides. These mobile rides are the only ones that fall under CPSC regulation.
Some states do perform direct inspections of fixed location rides. States that don’t instead trust insurance companies and/or outside inspectors to ensure amusement park rides comply with applicable regulations and laws.
All that said, what may be most important to you is understanding what steps you can take to pursue compensation if you or a loved one has ever been injured at an amusement park. The remainder of this article will cover the types of legal claims people typically make in these instances, and will provide some examples of specific amusement park injury lawsuits from the past. It will also cover the defenses often made in these cases.
Negligence is the usual legal claim when an injury resulted from the inattention of a park employee, or the park’s management in general. To successfully win this type of case, it’s the plaintiff’s responsibility to establish that a particular law required the defendant to take reasonable safety measures, but their failure to do so allowed an accident to occur.
Keep in mind that in most cases an amusement park is responsible for the on-the-job actions of its employees. Thus, if an accident was the result of the negligence of a specific employee, it’s still likely a plaintiff would file their lawsuit against the park itself.
Examples of this type of negligence include (but are not limited to) the following:
However, it’s important to understand that these cases can be nuanced. For example, in Jackson v. Kings Island, an appeals court eventually ruled that it was not the responsibility of park management to let a person know about dangers associated with a ride if they didn’t have “superior knowledge” of such dangers in the first place.
The amusement park isn’t always the liable party when someone is injured on the grounds of a park. Sometimes, the ride manufacturer may be to blame.
For instance, perhaps a ride’s harness, due to a design flaw, is prone to releasing when the ride is in motion. This could lead to someone falling out mid-ride. In such a case, the manufacturer, and not the park itself, would be liable. That said, a plaintiff would have to determine if the harness problem was the result of a manufacturing/design error, or a lack of proper maintenance.
In one instance, Lamb v. B B Amusements Corp, the plaintiff actually filed a lawsuit against both a ride’s operating company and the ride’s manufacturer when they sustained an injury on a roller coaster due to failure of a bolt connecting the cars of the roller coaster. However, upon further review of the case, an appeals court found that only BB Amusements Corp. (the ride operator) was liable because the cause of the initial accident was improper maintenance and not improper manufacturing.
You can’t assume an amusement park accident lawsuit will always result in the plaintiff receiving compensation. Sometimes defendants may convince a jury they’re not at fault. Common defenses they may use include:
Most reasonable people understand that certain amusement park rides may involve some degree of risk. Thus, if someone knows they’re going to have a potentially dangerous experience, but they still make the choice to do so anyway, a park or ride manufacturer may argue that they’re not liable for injuries a person knew they could sustain.
Again, it’s the responsibility of the park to offer proper safety instruction to riders. If they do so, but a rider is injured because they nevertheless ignored such instructions, the park may not be liable.
Some amusement park admission tickets include general disclaimers meant to protect the park from liability in the case of accidents. Although some parks have tried to defend themselves by insisting such disclaimers ensure no one can file lawsuits against them, this argument usually doesn’t work in their favor.
Hopefully, this guide has provided you with some valuable information about amusement park accidents. That said, this is still a complex topic. If you believe you have a case against an amusement park and/or ride manufacturer, you should consult with experts to determine what steps to take next.
If you our a loved one was injured in an amusement park accident, don’t hesitate to reach us here at Crash Guru. Our experts can answer any questions you may have and help you advocate for your injury rights.
