“His feet hit the mat, and almost instantly his knees buckled down, and he just let out the worst scream that you could ever have heard from a child.” That was Kaitlin Hill telling ABC News about the moment her three-year-old son’s life was upended by a broken femur at a trampoline park.
It is a scream we have heard echoed in the stories of families across Texas. At The Manginello Law Firm, also known as Attorney911, we know that for parents in Hutchins and across Dallas County, that sound is the beginning of a nightmare. You take your child to a place like Sky Zone, Urban Air, or Altitude expecting a safe afternoon of family fun near the I-45 corridor. You sign a waiver because the line is long and the staff is rushing you. You trust the “court monitors” to keep the big kids away from the little ones.
Then the physics of a double-bounce takes over. Within seconds, your child is airborne, then screaming on the mat while an eighteen-year-old attendant looks on, unsure of whether to call 911 because they weren’t trained for this.
We are not just another personal injury firm in Dallas. We are a firm built on twenty-five years of holding massive corporate entities accountable. Our founder, Ralph Manginello, has spent over two decades litigating against the likes of BP, Walmart, and Amazon. He brings federal court experience and a track record of multi-million dollar recoveries to every trampoline injury case we handle.
Our team includes associate attorney Lupe Peña, who used to sit on the other side of the table. He spent years defending insurance companies and recreational facilities against the exact types of claims we now bring for our clients. He knows their playbook. He knows which waiver clauses are ironclad and which ones are full of holes. He also speaks native Spanish, allowing us to represent Hutchins families directly—without interpreters and without delays.
If your family is currently at a trauma bay in Children’s Medical Center Dallas or grappling with a diagnosis of a Salter-Harris growth plate fracture at home in Hutchins, you need to know that you are up against a system. The trampoline park industry is not accidental in its danger; it is a business model that often prioritizes margin over your child’s safety.
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. We are available 24/7. Our spoliation letters go out within 24 hours of your call to freeze the evidence before the park’s surveillance DVR overwrites your case.
Why Your Child Was Hurt: The Physics and the Standards
Most families believe that if they follow the rules, they will be safe. The truth is that the rules are often the first thing to go when a park in the Hutchins area hits peak capacity on a Saturday afternoon.
Trampoline injuries are a documented pediatric trauma category. According to the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR 2024), up to 1.6% of all pediatric emergency department trauma visits are now trampoline-related. At Attorney911, we investigate the underlying “why” through the lens of industry-consensus safety standards.
The Double-Bounce: A Physics Trap
When a 200-pound adult lands on a trampoline bed at the same time a 60-pound child is pushing off, the kinetic energy transfer is catastrophic. The child isn’t just jumping anymore; they are being launched with force multiplied by up to four times. This is the “double-bounce,” and it is the mechanism behind some of the worst tibia, fibula, and femur fractures we see. ASTM F2970—the commercial trampoline park safety standard—requires parks to enforce age and weight separation to prevent exactly this. When a park in Dallas County lets a teenager and a toddler on the same court, they are choosing to ignore the physics of pediatric injury.
ASTM F2970 vs. EN ISO 23659:2022
The trampoline industry essentially wrote its own rules. ASTM F2970 is a voluntary standard. While some states have begun to incorporate parts of it into law, the United States lags far behind the international community. In Europe, EN ISO 23659:2022 provides a mandatory safety framework covering everything from foam pit depth to attendant training.
In Texas, your local park often operates below even the voluntary ASTM standard. We cite these standards—and their violations—to prove that the park breached its duty of care. Whether it’s an understaffed court at an Urban Air or a foam pit that hasn’t been properly rotated at an Altitude park, we look for the specific standard that was violated to cause your child’s pain.
The “Toddler Time” Violation
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has maintained a policy since 1999 advising that children under age six should never use a trampoline. Despite this quarter-century of medical consensus, parks throughout Dallas and Hutchins actively market “Toddler Jump” sessions. Their bones are not fully ossified, and their proprioception is not developed enough to handle the rebound energy of a professional-grade trampoline mat. When the industry ignores the AAP, we hold them accountable for the foreseeable harm that follows.
Our firm is currently litigating a $10 million lawsuit against a major university involving rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney failure following an exertion event. We apply that same medical and institutional accountability logic to trampoline cases. We understand the myoglobin cascade that happens when a child jumps for two hours in a 90-degree indoor facility without hydration breaks—we call it extended-jumping rhabdo, and we know how to litigate the medicine of it.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. Our firm works on a contingency basis, meaning you pay nothing unless we recover money for your family. We advance every expense—the biomechanical engineer, the pediatric orthopedic consultant, and the life-care planner.
Who Is Responsible for Your Injury in Hutchins?
When we file a lawsuit, we don’t just sue the local address in Hutchins or Mesquite. We perform what we call “corporate archeology.” The park you see is just the bottom layer of a five-tier defendant stack designed to shield the people with the money.
- The Operator LLC: This is the entity on the lease, often undercapitalized and carrying a minimal insurance policy.
- The Franchisee: A multi-unit ownership group that may own several Sky Zone or Urban Air locations.
- The Franchisor: This is the brand owner—entities like Sky Zone Franchising LLC or Urban Air Franchise Holdings. They mandate the training manuals and the safety standards that were likely violated.
- The Corporate Parent: The consolidation of the industry has been massive. Sky Zone, Inc. (formerly CircusTrix LLC) now parents Sky Zone, DEFY, and Rockin’ Jump sister brands under the backing of Palladium Equity Partners. Unleashed Brands, backed by Seidler Equity Partners, owns Urban Air.
- Private Equity Sponsors: These firms often approve the cost-cutting measures—like reducing attendant ratios or deferring foam pit replacement—to hit margin targets. We go upstream to find the decision-makers who accepted the risk to your child’s life.
In Harris County, Texas, a jury returned the largest reported verdict against a trampoline park: $11.485 million against the operator of Cosmic Jump. The jury found the park grossly negligent because it had actual knowledge of a torn trampoline slide and failed to fix it, leading to a teenager’s traumatic brain injury. That result happened in a Texas courtroom, and it is the standard we bring to every Dallas County case.
We also look at UA Attractions, LLC, which acts as a pass-through manufacturer for Urban Air attractions. In a 2023 Kansas arbitration award of $15.6 million for a quadriplegia injury on the “Wipe-Out” attraction, the franchisor (UATP Management, LLC) had to absorb 40% of the award because of a “systemic failure” to implement safety changes. We don’t let the franchisors hide behind the “we just license the name” excuse.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 today. Whether your child was hurt on a trampoline deck, a Sky Rider zipline, or an adjacent climbing wall, we have the experience to name every liable party and every insurance tower—from the primary GL layer to the corporate excess umbrella that can exceed $25 million.
The Waiver Is Not a Wall: Texas Law and Your Case
“But I signed the waiver at the kiosk.”
The insurance adjusters who call you within 48 hours of an accident will say this as if it ends the conversation. At Attorney911, we know the waiver is often just noise. Our team includes a lawyer who used to write these very clauses, and we attack them on five specific fronts.
1. The Munoz Doctrine (Parental Indemnity)
Under Texas law, specifically Munoz v. II Jaz Inc. (1993), a parent generally cannot sign away a minor child’s personal injury cause of action. Your signature may bar your own individual claims, but it does not extinguish your child’s right to be whole after a catastrophic landing. The Texas Supreme Court and appellate courts have consistently held that children must be protected from “improvident decisions” of their parents that would leave them without resources for medical care.
2. Gross Negligence Carve-Out
No state in America, including Texas, allows a waiver to release a defendant from gross negligence. If a park in Hutchins knew about a hazard—a compacted foam pit, a rusted spring, or an understaffed dodgeball court—and chose to let your child jump anyway, that is conscious indifference. Gross negligence defeats any piece of paper you signed at the front desk.
3. The Dresser “Fair Notice” Requirement
In Texas, a waiver must pass the Dresser Industries test. It must be conspicuous (you can’t hide the release in tiny font in the middle of a nineteen-page document) and it must satisfy the express negligence doctrine (the word “negligence” must actually appear in the release). Many kiosk waivers, especially those rushed through on an iPad at a busy facility, fall short of these legal requirements.
4. The Delfingen Defense (Bilingual Formation)
If your family’s primary language is Spanish and the park presented you with an English-only waiver while you were under pressure to let the kids jump, that waiver may be void. The Delfingen US-Texas v. Valenzuela ruling allows us to challenge the very formation of the contract. If you couldn’t read what you were signing, and the teenage attendant didn’t offer a Spanish version, you didn’t legally “agree” to anything.
5. Signer Authority (Texas Family Code § 153.073)
Was your child at a birthday party when they were hurt? Did a friend’s parent, a grandma, or an aunt sign the waiver? Under the Texas Family Code, only a legal parent or court-appointed conservator has the authority to sign for a minor. A signature by anyone else is a legal nullity. The waiver is gone before we even start the case.
Do not let an insurance adjuster talk you out of your rights. Call (888) 288-9911. We have handled cases where other firms turned families down because they didn’t understand how to bypass the waiver. As our client Donald Wilcox said, “One company said they would not accept my case. Then I got a call from Manginello… I got a call to come pick up this handsome check.”
Catastrophic Pediatric Injuries: Beyond the Emergency Room
A trampoline injury at age eight is not a fracture at age thirty. In children, those fractures often involve the growth plate (the physis). A Salter-Harris Type II fracture of the distal tibia or a comminuted femoral shaft fracture can change the entire trajectory of a child’s development.
The surgeons at places like Children’s Medical Center Dallas or Cook Children’s may save the limb today, but the real damage manifests over the next decade. When a growth plate is destroyed at age nine, the bone may grow crooked or stop growing altogether, leading to limb-length discrepancies that require repeated corrective osteotomies or leg-lengthening surgeries throughout adolescence.
We also focus on SCIWORA (Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality). This is a pediatric-specific risk. A child can land head-first in a compacted foam pit—where the cubes are compressed below the 42-inch ASTM recommendation—and suffer cord ischemia even when the X-rays and CT scans in the ER look “normal.” These children are often told they have a “panic attack” or “neck strain” and sent home, only to crash 24 hours later in permanent paralysis.
Our firm builds a Pediatric Life-Care Plan for every catastrophic case. We work with:
- Biomechanical Engineers to prove how the 4x launch force of a double-bounce occurred.
- Pediatric Orthopedists to project the cost of growth-arrest monitoring through age 18.
- Life-Care Planners to quantify the 60-year horizon of vocational loss and attendant care.
- Forensic Economists to ensure the settlement isn’t calculated in nominal dollars, but in the tax-adjusted present value your child actually needs.
We represent families in Hutchins who are facing PTSD, academic regression after a TBI, and the crushing weight of medical bills that never seem to stop.
48-Hour Evidence Preservation in Dallas County
The clock is ticking against you. The corporate parents of local parks have risk-management teams that start working before your child even reaches the hospital.
- Surveillance Overwrite: Most DFW-area parks use DVR systems that overwrite after 7, 14, or 30 days. If the video of your child’s injury disappears, the case becomes a “he-said, she-said” battle.
- Incident Report Revisions: We have seen metadata evidence where an “original” incident report was edited 48 hours after the trauma to remove mentions of attendant inattention.
- Waiver Purges: Kiosk databases often purge prior versions on a rolling schedule. We use the Wayback Machine and forensic digital extractions to find the exact waiver version you clicked that Saturday.
We send our spoliation letters by certified mail and email within 24 hours of you hiring us. We demand the DVR hard drives, the shift assignment logs, the daily pre-opening inspection checklists, and the franchisor’s own audit reports. We don’t wait for “standard discovery.” We freeze the scene.
FAQ: What Hutchins Parents Need to Know
Q: Can I sue if my child was hurt on a backyard trampoline?
A: Yes. Backyard cases involve different theories. We pursue the manufacturer (Jumpking, Skywalker, Bouncepro) for design defects, the retailer (Walmart, Amazon) as a seller, and the homeowner under the attractive nuisance doctrine. Texas holds homeowners accountable when they have an accessible trampoline that attracts a neighborhood child who doesn’t understand the danger.
Q: What if the park says they didn’t call 911 because it wasn’t an emergency?
A: We have seen reports (like the Urban Air Southlake pattern) where staff is reportedly instructed not to call 911 to minimize “bad optics.” This delay is evidence of gross negligence. If the park refused to call an ambulance for your child, that is a major litigation lever for us.
Q: How much is my case worth?
A: Catastrophic spinal cord cases can exceed $10 million in present-value life-care plans. Serious orthopedic fractures with growth plate damage often settle in the $500,000 to $2.5 million range. The value depends on the depth of the insurance tower—from the franchisee’s policy to the franchisor’s excess layers.
Q: Do we have to go through arbitration?
A: Texas courts recently enforced delegation clauses in Cerna v. Pearland Urban Air. This means an arbitrator—not a judge—may decide where your case goes first. But arbitration is not a dead end. We just won a $15.6 million award in a trampoline-park arbitration. We treat the arbitration room with the same aggression we bring to the courtroom.
Q: How long do I have to sue?
A: The Texas statute of limitations is generally two years. For minors, it is tolled until they turn eighteen, giving them until age twenty to file. BUT—the evidence deadline is weeks, not years. If you wait, the video is gone.
Q: What is exertional rhabdomyolysis?
A: It is a muscle-and-organ breakdown caused by extended jumping, especially in high heat without water. If your child has dark, tea-colored urine within 48 hours of a visit, go to the pediatric ER at Children’s Health in Dallas immediately and request a CK test. Then call us.
Why Choose The Manginello Law Firm?
You may see billboards for firms that handle thousands of car wrecks. We are different. We built a practice specifically around the architecture of trampoline-park and institutional negligence.
As our client Chad Harris said, “You are NOT a pest to them and you are NOT just some client… You are FAMILY to them.” We treat your child’s recovery fund like it was our own relative’s future at stake.
- Federal Court Battle-Tested: We aren’t intimidated by the private-equity lawyers from Palladium or Seidler.
- Waiver-Defeat Advantage: Lupe Peña knows their defense script from his previous career.
- The Rhabdo Bridge: We already have the nephrology and pathology experts on retainer from our $10 million UH case.
- Three Texas Offices: Hutchins families are a short drive from our main Houston or Austin offices, and we serve Dallas County daily.
Your child’s life changed in one bad bounce. The park had twenty-five years of warnings to make that court safer. They chose their profit margin over your son’s spine or your daughter’s growth plate. Now it’s time to hold them accountable.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. Our line is answered 24/7. Your consultation is free, and we advance every dollar of the investigative cost. The case starts today.
