A Saturday afternoon at a trampoline park in Midland should be defined by the sound of laughter and the energy of a birthday party. Whether you are at the Urban Air on North Midkiff Road, Legacy Extreme on Starboard Drive, or the Altitude just down the road in Odessa, you expect that the wristbands you purchased and the waiver you signed at the kiosk come with an implicit promise of safety. But for many families in the Permian Basin, that afternoon ends with “the worst scream that you could ever have heard from a child,” as Kati Hill described to ABC News when her three-year-old son’s femur snapped during a “Toddler Time” session.
At The Manginello Law Firm, we know that when your child is rushed from a Midland facility to a trauma bay, your world stops. You are likely being told it was a “freak accident” or that “accidents happen.” We are here to tell you that in our 25-plus years of experience, a trampoline injury is almost never an accident—it is the predictable output of a business decision. For over two decades, our founder Ralph Manginello has stood toe-to-toe with Fortune 500 corporations like BP, Walmart, and Amazon. We bring that same fearlessness to the national trampoline park conglomerates and insurance carriers that currently hope you believe the waiver you signed is an absolute shield. It is not.
We represent families in Midland and throughout Midland County who are facing the life-altering consequences of catastrophic pediatric fractures, traumatic brain injuries, and spinal cord damage. Our team includes attorney Lupe Peña, a former insurance defense lawyer who spent years representing the very recreational businesses and insurers we now fight. He knows their playbook because he helped write it. He speaks Spanish natively, representing our Midland families directly—Hablamos Español—without interpreters or delays. If your family has been changed by a single bad landing, call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. We are ready to build your case.
The Midland Trampoline Landscape: Why the Hazard Is Systemic
Midland is a high-density trampoline market. Between the local chains and the backyard equipment in every residential neighborhood from Grasslands to Old Midland, thousands of children are airborne every day. Nationally, the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) tracks approximately 300,000 trampoline-related ER visits annually. In a growing hub like Midland, these aren’t just statistics; they are children being treated at Midland Memorial Hospital or being life-flighted to Level 1 pediatric trauma centers in Lubbock or the DFW metroplex.
Most parents in Midland assume these parks are regulated by the state. They are not. Texas has no statewide trampoline park safety law. While the Texas Department of Insurance regulates “Class B” inflatable rides under Texas Occupations Code Chapter 2151—including the bungee trampolines and Sky Rider zip-coasters you see at Urban Air—the main trampoline decks themselves are statutorily excluded. This leaves Midland families at the mercy of the park’s own internal standards and a voluntary industry code that is routinely ignored during peak hours.
When we investigate a case in Midland, we look at the system. We look at the five-layer defendant stack: the local operator LLC, the franchisee, the national franchisor (like Sky Zone Franchising LLC or UATP Management), the multi-million dollar corporate parent (Sky Zone, Inc. or Unleashed Brands), and the private equity sponsors like Palladium Equity Partners or Seidler Equity Partners. We know that the local LLC is often undercapitalized by design. We go upstream because the money is upstream, and that is where the decisions to cut staffing and training were made.
Why the Waiver You Signed in Midland Is Not a Wall
The first thing the insurance adjuster will tell you when they call your Midland home is that you signed a waiver and therefore have no case. We want you to listen closely: that is a lie designed to close your file before you understand your rights. We attack Midland trampoline park waivers on five distinct vectors:
- The Gross Negligence Carve-Out: In Texas, no waiver can release a defendant from “gross negligence.” Under the landmark case Transportation Insurance Co. v. Moriel, gross negligence involves an extreme degree of risk that the park was subjectively aware of but consciously indifferent to. When a park in Midland operates at half the required attendant ratio or ignores a torn mat, they are crossing into gross negligence territory.
- Parental Indemnity for Minors: In Texas, the ruling in Munoz v. II Jaz Inc. established that a parent generally cannot sign away a minor child’s personal injury cause of action in advance. Even if you signed the iPad at the kiosk, your child’s own right to sue survives.
- The Fair Notice Doctrine: Per the Texas Supreme Court in Dresser Industries v. Page Petroleum, a waiver must be “conspicuous” and meet the “express negligence” rule. If the word “negligence” isn’t used correctly or the text was buried in a way that wouldn’t catch a reasonable person’s attention, the waiver is void.
- Bilingual Formation Issues: Under the Delfingen doctrine, if your family’s primary language is Spanish and the Midland park only provided an English waiver at a crowded counter without explanation, that contract may be invalid due to a lack of meaningful assent.
- Signer Authority: Many Midland injuries happen at birthday parties where a grandparent, aunt, or even a friend’s parent signed for the child. Texas Family Code § 153.073 is clear: only a parent or court-appointed conservator has the authority to bind a minor. A signature by anyone else renders the waiver a legal nullity.
In Harris County, a jury awarded $11.485 million—including $6 million in punitive damages—against the operator of Cosmic Jump after a teenager fell through a torn trampoline into concrete. The waiver was signed. The jury found gross negligence anyway. That is the standard we apply to every case in Midland.
The Physics of a Midland Trampoline Disaster: Double-Bouncing and Rebound Energy
We don’t guess how your child was hurt; we retain biomechanical engineers to prove it. The most common mechanism we see in Midland is the “double-bounce.” This occurs when two jumpers of different sizes occupy the same bed. When a 200-pound adult lands just as a 60-pound child is pushing off, the energy transfer multiplies the child’s launch force by up to 4x. The child isn’t jumping; they are being launched at a velocity their developing bones cannot absorb.
ASTM F2970, the safety standard written by the trampoline industry itself, requires parks to operationalize age and weight separation. When you walk into a park in Midland and see a high-schooler and a toddler on the same court, you are looking at a direct violation of the standard of care. The resulting injury—often a comminuted femoral shaft fracture or a Salter-Harris growth plate injury—is a lifetime medical event, not a simple broken bone.
Catastrophic Pediatric Injuries and Long-Term Damages
Children’s bones are biomechanically distinct. They have growth plates (physes) that are weaker than the surrounding ligaments. A Salter-Harris fracture at age eight can produce a limb-length discrepancy that doesn’t manifest until your child is fourteen. If the growth plate is destroyed, the bone may stop growing or grow at an angle, requiring corrective osteotomies or even prosthetic lifts for life.
We also see “SCIWORA”—Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality. This is a terrifying pediatric phenomenon where a child enters a foam pit head-first at a Midland park and the cord is stretched or compressed, but the initial CT scan in a Midland ER looks “normal.” Because children’s spines are so flexible, the cord can be permanently damaged even when the bones don’t break. This leads to progressive neurological decline that can result in paralysis if not recognized in the first six hours.
Because we are currently litigating a $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston for rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney failure, we are particularly attuned to Midland’s risk of “exertional rhabdo.” Midland’s summer heat can push indoor facility temperatures to dangerous levels. A child jumping for two hours straight without water can suffer muscle breakdown so severe that myoglobin spills into the blood and shuts down the kidneys. If your child had “cola-colored” urine or extreme muscle pain 24 hours after a park visit, get to the ER immediately and then call us. We know the medicine, we know the experts, and we know how to hold the institution accountable.
The 48-Hour Evidence Race in Midland
The moment an injury happens at a Midland trampoline park, the evidence begins to disappear. Park surveillance DVRs are typically set to overwrite in as little as 7 to 30 days. Incident reports get “revised” on park computer systems. Staff members transfer or quit. Waiver databases purge their version history.
This is why we file fast and send spoliation letters within 24 hours of being hired. We demand the preservation of:
- Multi-angle surveillance footage (before it is “lost” or “glitches”).
- Attendant shift logs and time-clock data to prove understaffing.
- Training records for the 17-year-old on duty.
- Daily inspection logs to see if that torn mat was already documented.
- Kiosk audit trails to see who actually clicked “I agree.”
If a park in Midland claims the video “isn’t available,” we don’t take their word for it. We utilize digital forensic tools to interrogate the DVR and find out who accessed the files and when. We have seen what these corporations do to hide the truth, and we know how to stop them.
Why Midland Families Choose The Manginello Law Firm
Most personal injury firms handle a trampoline case the same way they’d handle a small fender-bender. They don’t understand the corporate archeology required to pierce the 5-layer defendant stack. They don’t know the difference between a Salter-Harris Type II and Type IV fracture. And they certainly don’t have an attorney like Lupe Peña, who knows the insurance defense strategy because he used to execute it.
We operate on a contingency fee basis. You pay us nothing unless we win. We advance every cost of the investigation—the biomechanist from Austin, the pediatric orthopedic consultant from Houston, the ASTM compliance specialist. Your Midland family’s recovery fund stays intact while we fight the corporate lawyers. As our client Chad Harris said, “You are NOT just some client… You are FAMILY to them.” We treat the parents at a Midland hospital bedside with the compassion they deserve and the legal aggression their child’s case requires.
If your life was changed in one bounce at a Midland trampoline park or by a defective backyard Jumpking or Skywalker, don’t let the insurance company dictate the value of your future. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 today for a free consultation. Hablamos Español. The case starts now.
Frequently Asked Questions About Midland Trampoline Injuries
Can I sue if the Midland park made me sign an electronic waiver?
Yes. Electronic waivers under the Texas UETA (Uniform Electronic Transactions Act) must still meet the fair notice and conspicuousness standards set by Texas law. Many kiosk systems in Midland parks are rushed or glitchy, which can invalidate the legal formation of the contract. Furthermore, no waiver in Texas can release a park from gross negligence or bar a minor’s personal claim per the Munoz ruling.
How much is my child’s trampoline injury case worth?
Catastrophic outcomes vary, but national benchmarks for spinal cord injuries can reach $15 million or more, such as the Damion Collins $15.6 million award in 2023. A pediatric growth plate injury requiring years of monitoring typically anchors in the $500,000 to $2 million range. We build a Life Care Plan to calculate every dollar your child will need for the next 70 years.
What if my child was double-bounced by an adult at a Midland park?
This is a direct violation of ASTM F2970. The park has a non-delegable duty to separate jumpers by age and weight class. If the monitor was present and failed to intervene, or if the park was understaffed, they are liable for the resulting fracture.
How long do I have to sue a trampoline park in Texas?
The standard statute of limitations is two years from the date of injury. However, for a minor’s personal claim, the clock is “tolled” until they turn eighteen, giving them until age twenty to file. But you cannot wait that long. Evidence like surveillance footage in Midland facilities is destroyed in weeks. If you wait, you may have a legal right but no evidence to prove it.
Is the foam pit actually safe for my kid?
Many industry experts now consider traditional foam pits a design defect. If the foam cubes are compressed or the pit is too shallow—a common issue at high-volume Midland-Odessa parks—a jumper can “bottom out” and strike the concrete floor or a dense pad, causing permanent paralysis. This is why many chain parks are moving to airbags.
What should I do if the insurance adjuster for the park calls me?
Do not give a recorded statement. They are trained to lead you into admitting fault or downplaying the injury. Tell them you are represented by Attorney911 and hang up. Let Lupe Peña, our former defense attorney, handle the negotiations for you.
Taking Action for Your Family in Midland
The parent conglomerates behind brands like Sky Zone (Palladium Equity) and Urban Air (Seidler Equity) are reporting record sales—Sky Zone, Inc. reported $642 million in systemwide sales in 2024. They have armies of lawyers. We’ve gone toe-to-toe with BP and large oil and gas operators; their fleet of lawyers does not intimidate us. What happened to your child wasn’t just a “bad break.” It was the result of a system that prioritized throughput over safety.
If you are standing at a Midland hospital bed right now, or if you are looking at a mountain of therapy bills, know that you don’t have to fight this alone. Call 1-888-ATTY-911. We answer 24/7. We advance all costs. We speak your language. And we will get your child the justice the law demands.
1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. No fee unless we win.
