“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.”
These are the words of Kati Hill, a mother who watched her three-year-old son, Colton, suffer a broken femur at a trampoline park. Her warning, shared hundreds of thousands of times across the country, is a story we hear too often at our firm. On a Saturday afternoon in Abilene, at places like Formula Fun or any of the large regional chains like Urban Air and Altitude, thousands of families believe they are walking into a supervised, safety-engineered environment. They sign a waiver on a digital kiosk, hand over their credit card, and assume the primary risk is a bruised knee.
The truth is much darker. While you were signing that kiosk waiver in the lobby, the clock was already ticking on your child’s safety. Approximately 1.6% of all pediatric emergency department trauma visits in the United States are now trampoline-related, according to researchers in the American Journal of Roentgenology (2024). In a community like Abilene, where youth sports and competitive cheer programs through Wylie ISD and Abilene High drive kids toward high-intensity activity, the risk is amplified.
We are Attorney911, The Manginello Law Firm. For over 25 years, our managing partner Ralph Manginello has gone head-to-head with some of the largest corporate entities in the world, including BP after the Texas City refinery disaster and multi-billion-dollar logistics companies like Amazon and Walmart. We’ve recovered millions for victims of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and spinal cord injuries. We built this firm specifically to handle cases where deep-pocketed defendants hide behind layers of corporate bureaucracy and complex legal waivers.
If your family is currently sitting at a hospital bedside at Hendrick Medical Center or waiting for a specialist at a Level 1 pediatric trauma center in North Texas, you likely have one question: “Can I sue if I signed the waiver?”
In Texas, the answer is often a resounding yes. Whether your child was injured in a double-bounce collision, a foam pit with compacted padding, or on a harness attraction that wasn’t properly secured, the “paper shield” the park relies on is not absolute. We know this because our team includes Associate Attorney Lupe Peña, a former insurance defense lawyer who used to represent these exact recreational businesses. He knows their playbook because he helped write it. Now, he uses that insider knowledge to dismantle their defenses for our clients.
The Abilene Trampoline-Park Reality: A Predictable System of Negligence
A trampoline injury at an Abilene-area park is never truly an “accident.” It is the predictable output of a business model that prioritizes throughput and profit over the safety standards established by the industry itself. When we investigate an injury at a park, we aren’t looking for bad luck. We are looking for the specific business decisions that led to the catastrophe.
Most families in Taylor County assume that if a business is open, it must be regulated by the state. That is a dangerous misconception. Texas is one of 39 states that has zero statewide safety laws specifically for trampoline parks. While the Texas Department of Insurance regulates “Class B” inflatable rides — like the bungee tramps or inflatable obstacle courses you might see at regional events or inside some Abilene parks — the main trampoline decks are statutorily excluded under Texas Occupations Code § 2151.002(1)(C)(iv).
In this regulatory vacuum, the only thing keeping your child safe is the operator’s voluntary adherence to ASTM F2970.
ASTM F2970: The Industry’s Own Safety Floor
ASTM F2970 is the safety standard written by the trampoline park industry itself. It dictates everything from attendant-to-jumper ratios to the depth of foam pits and the frequency of hardware inspections. When an Abilene park violates these standards, they aren’t just being “careless.” They are violating the very rules their peers agreed were necessary to prevent death and disfigurement.
Common violations we see in Texas litigation include:
- Attendant-to-Jumper Ratios: ASTM F2970 essentially requires a minimum of one monitor per 32 jumpers, though higher risk zones like foam pits require even closer supervision. During peak hours on a Saturday in Abilene, those ratios frequently collapse, leaving a single 17-year-old monitor responsible for fifty or sixty children at once.
- Age and Weight Separation: The standard recognizes the deadly physics of a “double-bounce.” When an adult lands on a trampoline bed while a child is pushing off, the energy transfer can multiply the child’s launch force by up to 4x. In Texas, if the park fails to operationalize age-segregated jumping, they are ignoring a known mechanism of pediatric growth-plate destruction.
- Maintenance Scrutiny: Every tear in a mat, every exposed spring on a court, and every compressed foam block in a pit is a documented evidence point.
In Harris County, Texas, a jury recently sent a clear message to the industry. In the case of Menchaca v. Cosmic Jump, a 16-year-old fell through a rip in a trampoline slide onto a concrete floor. He sustained a permanent traumatic brain injury. The judge and jury didn’t care that a waiver had been signed. They found the operator grossly negligent and returned a verdict of $11.485 million, including $6 million in punitive damages.
That verdict happened in Texas because the jury recognized that “conscious indifference” to a known risk — like a hole in a jumping surface — voids any protection the waiver provides. We bring that same aggressive investigative lens to every case we take in the Abilene region.
The Waiver Architecture: Why Your Signature Is Not the Final Word
The most successful tactic used by trampoline park chains like Sky Zone, Urban Air, and Altitude is the psychological barrier of the waiver. They want Abilene parents to believe that the moment they tapped “Accept” on that iPad, they forfeited their family’s right to justice.
They are wrong. Our firm’s associate attorney, Lupe Peña, spent years defending these waivers. He knows exactly where the holes are. In Texas, we attack waivers on four primary fronts:
1. The Minor-Child Protection Rule (Munoz v. II Jaz Inc.)
Texas law is very clear: a parent cannot bind a minor child to a pre-injury waiver for a commercial activity. Under the landmark decision Munoz v. II Jaz, Inc. (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1993), a parent’s signature may bar the parent’s own claim for damages, but it does not bar the child’s individual cause of action. Your child is an independent legal entity in the eyes of Texas courts. Your signature at the front desk of a park in Abilene cannot sign away their right to a safe environment.
2. The Dresser “Fair Notice” Doctrine
The Texas Supreme Court decided decades ago in Dresser Industries v. Page Petroleum that if a business wants you to release them from their own negligence, they have to tell you in a way that is “conspicuous.” If the release language was buried in the fine print of a 10-screen kiosk flow, or if the word “negligence” didn’t appear in bold, contrasting type, the waiver may be void under the “Express Negligence” rule.
3. The Gross Negligence Carve-Out
No court in Texas will enforce a waiver that purports to release “gross negligence” or “willful misconduct.” If the Abilene park knew a foam pit was only 2 feet deep when it should have been 6 feet (as in the Ty Thomasson case at SkyPark Phoenix), or if they knew an auto-belay harness was failing and kept it in service, the waiver becomes a legal nullity.
4. Bilingual Formation Defeats (The Delfingen Doctrine)
Abilene is home to a vibrant, multi-generational Hispanic community. In many Taylor County households, Spanish is the primary language. If a park presents an English-only waiver on a digital screen, pressures the family to sign quickly because “the kids are waiting to jump,” and provides no Spanish translation, that waiver may be void as a matter of law. Under Delfingen US-Texas, L.P. v. Valenzuela, a Texas court can refuse to enforce a contract where there was no “meeting of the minds” due to a language barrier and procedural unconscionability.
The Corporate Shell Game: Choosing Your Defendants Wisely
When a child is catastrophically injured—perhaps sustaining a Salter-Harris growth plate fracture or a cervical spinal injury—the medical costs alone can reach millions over a lifetime. The local limited liability company (LLC) that operates the park in Abilene likely carries a $1 million primary insurance policy. For a child facing twenty or thirty years of orthopedic monitoring and potential corrective surgeries, that isn’t enough.
We don’t just sue the local operator. We perform “Corporate Archeology” to find the real money.
The national brands you see in Abilene and the Big Country are actually complex, layered entities. Sky Zone, Inc. (formerly known as CircusTrix) is a massive conglomerate backed by Palladium Equity Partners since 2018. It now parents the Sky Zone, DEFY, and Rockin’ Jump brands as sister chains. On the other side of the industry, Unleashed Brands (the parent company of Urban Air) was acquired by Seidler Equity Partners in February 2023.
When we file a lawsuit, we look upstream to the franchisor and the private equity sponsors who make the cost-cutting decisions that affect safety on the ground in Abilene. In the landmark $15.6 million arbitration award for Damion Collins—a father paralyzed at an Urban Air park—the arbitrator found a “systemic failure” by the company. Notably, the franchisor (UATP Management, LLC) was held responsible for 40% of the award.
We go after every layer:
- The Operator LLC: For direct negligence on the court.
- The Franchisor: For failure to enforce the Brand Standards and Operations Manuals that are supposed to mirror ASTM F2970.
- The Equipment Manufacturers: Companies like Jumpking, Skywalker, or UA Attractions may be liable if a weld failed or a net tore.
- The Private Equity Sponsor: If we can prove they mandated staffing reductions that made the injury inevitable.
This is the level of corporate litigation Ralph Manginello was trained for in the BP Texas City refinery cases. We aren’t intimidated by their fleet of corporate-defense lawyers. We’ve already beaten them.
Catastrophic Injuries: What Abilene Parents Need to Watch For
Unlike a car accident where the energy is obvious, trampoline injuries can sometimes be “slow-motion” medical emergencies. If your child was injured in a park or on a backyard trampoline—manufactured by brands like Jumpking, Springfree, or Skywalker—you must be hyper-vigilant in the 48 hours following the visit.
1. Pediatric “Trampoline Fractures”
This is a specific medical diagnosis: a proximal tibial metaphyseal buckle fracture. It typically occurs in children aged 2 to 5 who are double-bounced by a heavier jumper. Because a toddler’s bones are still developing, they are biomechanically distinct from adults. Their bones are more pliable but have “physes” or growth plates that are exceptionally vulnerable. A Salter-Harris Type II fracture can look like a simple break on an X-ray but may lead to permanent limb-length discrepancy or angular deformity if the growth plate stops producing bone correctly.
2. SCIWORA: The Invisible Spinal Injury
Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormality (SCIWORA) is a terrifying pediatric phenomenon. A child might land on their neck in a foam pit and “walk it off” with only slight stiffness. A CT scan in the ER might even come back negative. Yet, hours later, they can suffer a progressive neurological decline. In children, the ligaments can stretch further than the spinal cord can follow, causing the cord to suffer ischemia (lack of blood flow) even when the surrounding bone isn’t broken. If your child was initially misdiagnosed with a “panic attack” after a backflip—a viral pattern we saw in the Elle Yona TikTok case (2024) where a teen suffered a spinal-cord stroke—you need an immediate second opinion from a pediatric neurologist.
3. Exertional Rhabdomyolysis: The “Silent” Multiplier
This is the same physiology we are litigating in our active $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston. Rhabdomyolysis occurs when extreme physical exertion causes muscle tissue to break down and release myoglobin into the blood. Under the hot West Texas sun, or in an Abilene park with inadequate HVAC, a child jumping continuously for 90 minutes with poor hydration can go into acute kidney failure.
If your child has cola-colored or dark brown urine, severe muscle pain, or vomiting 24 to 48 hours after a trampoline park visit, get them to Hendrick Medical Center or your nearest emergency department immediately. Ask for a creatine kinase (CK) blood test. High levels (often exceeding 10,000 U/L) confirm rhabdo. We know how to document this, how to prove the causation to the park’s environment, and how to hold them accountable.
The Evidence Clock: Why The First 7 Days Are Critical
While you are focusing on your child’s surgeries and rehab, the trampoline park is focusing on their defense. In the trampoline industry, evidence has an incredibly short shelf life.
- Surveillance Overwrite: Most Abilene-area parks use DVR systems that overwrite footage on a rolling 7- to 30-day cycle. If you wait three weeks to call a lawyer, the video of the “double-bounce” or the monitor on his phone is gone forever.
- Incident Report Revisions: We have seen cases where the original handwritten incident report (“attendant was distracted”) is “updated” in the digital system 48 hours later to say something else entirely.
- Kiosk Metadata: The “Waiver Machine” purges audit trails. We need the metadata to see if the waiver you “signed” was even the same version they are now using in court.
Our spoliation letter goes out within 24 hours of your retention. We demand the preservation of the DVR hard drive, the employee shift logs, and the daily inspection records. If a park “glitches” their video at the moment of injury—as happened in the Mathew Knight Georgia case ($3.5M verdict)—we move for an adverse inference instruction that tells the jury to assume the destroyed video would have proven the park’s negligence.
Learn more in our video guide: “I’ve Had an Accident — What Should I Do First?” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCox4Lq7zBM
Backyard Trampolines and the Attractive Nuisance Doctrine
Not every trampoline injury in Abilene happens at a commercial park. Taylor County backyards are full of equipment from Skywalker, Jumpking, and Bouncepro (the Walmart private label). If your child was injured at a neighbor’s house, the legal territory shifts to “Premises Liability” and the “Attractive Nuisance” doctrine.
Texas recognizes that a trampoline is an artificial condition that is inherently attractive to children. If a neighborhood child wanders onto a property and is injured on an unfenced or unsecured trampoline, the homeowner can be held liable even if the child was technically a “trespasser.”
Furthermore, we investigate the Manufacturer Defect. In 2026, the CPSC issued a major recall for toddler trampolines from SEGMART due to strangulation hazards. We also cite the longitudinal history of recalls:
- Jumpking (2005): Recalled 1 million units for frame weld failures.
- Sportspower / Bouncepro (Retailer as Seller): 120,000 units recalled because the netting failed, sending children to the ground.
If a product failed, we don’t just look at the homeowner’s insurance policy—which often has a specific trampoline exclusion. We look at the manufacturer and the retailer. Under the doctrine of Bolger v. Amazon and Oberdorf v. Amazon, large retailers like Walmart and Amazon can be held responsible as “sellers” for the defective units they distribute.
Why Choose Attorney911 for Your Abilene Trampoline Injury Case?
You don’t need a generalist law firm that occasionally handles a “slip and fall.” You need a firm that has memorized ASTM F2970, that knows why EN ISO 23659:2022 is the standard the U.S. should have reached by now, and that understands the exact biomechanics of a comminuted tibia fracture.
As our client Chad Harris said about our firm: “You are NOT a pest to them and you are NOT just some client… You are FAMILY to them.” That is the hallmark of the Manginello Law Firm. We treat the families of injured children with the care they deserve while treating the corporate defendants with the relentless aggression they’ve earned.
The Barrier-Remover Commitment:
- No upfront costs: We pay for the biomechanical engineer. We pay for the pediatric orthopedic consultant. We pay for the Life Care Planner. You pay nothing unless we recover money for you.
- Federal Trial Experience: Ralph Manginello’s admission to the Southern District of Texas and 25+ years in the courtroom give us a standing that intimidates insurance adjusters.
- Lupe’s Defense Edge: One of our attorneys used to be their lawyer. He knows their valuation software, their adjuster scripts, and the gaps in their digital waivers.
- Direct Access: We answer 24/7. When you call 1-888-ATTY-911, your case is handled by our senior team, not handed off to a junior associate you’ll never meet.
Frequently Asked Questions for Abilene Families
“Can I sue if I signed the waiver at the park in Abilene?”
Yes. Texas courts frequently void these waivers for children under the Munoz rule. Furthermore, a waiver never protects a park against gross negligence—like failing to maintain a foam pit or having an untrained staff. The signature is the park’s first defense; our five-vector attack is usually the winner.
“How much is a trampoline park injury settlement worth?”
It depends on the severity. Anchor points include:
- Cosmic Jump (TX): $11.485 million (TBI)
- Collins v. Urban Air (KS): $15.6 million (Quadriplegia)
- AirMaxx (MN): $3 million (Paralysis)
- Get Air (PA): $412,445 (7-year-old PCL fracture)
For catastrophic pediatric injuries, we build a Life Care Plan that forecasts sixty to seventy years of medical needs, tutoring, attendant care, and lost earning capacity. Those plans can reach into the eight-figure range.
“Does homeowners’ insurance cover trampoline accidents?”
Many standard policies in Abilene exclude them. However, your Umbrella Policy may provide coverage, or we may be able to pursue the manufacturer for a product defect. Never assume there is “no money” until we have audited the full insurance tower.
“How long do I have to sue in Texas?”
The statute of limitations is 2 years from the date of injury. However, for a minor, Texas tolls (pauses) the clock until they turn 18, giving them until age 20. But don’t wait. The evidence (surveillance video) will be destroyed in 30 days or less.
“Wait, do I sue the person whose house my kid was at or the company?”
We typically name every potentially liable party. If it was a backyard injury, we name the homeowner (seeking their insurance coverage) AND the manufacturer/retailer if the equipment failed. Your child’s recovery is more important than avoiding a difficult conversation with a neighbor.
Kill-Shot Closing: The Case Starts Today
What happened to your child at an Abilene trampoline park wasn’t a freak accident. It was the predictable output of a system that put margin ahead of your child’s life. The American Academy of Pediatrics has been warning about the dangers of these facilities for over two decades. The industry wrote its own safety floor (ASTM F2970) and then chose to ignore it during a busy weekend rush. Their surveillance is engineered to overwrite before you can find a lawyer. Their waivers are drafted to make you go away.
Attorney911 was built for exactly this fight. Ralph Manginello brings 25+ years of catastrophic injury experience, including the BP refinery litigation. Lupe Peña knows their defense tactics because he used to deploy them. Our current $10 million rhabdomyolysis case against a major university uses the same medical experts and institutional accountability theories your child’s case requires.
Your child’s future is decided by what gets preserved this week. Our spoliation letter goes out within 24 hours of your retention. We advance every dollar of the experts required to win.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. No fee unless we win. We will find every insurance layer. we will name every corporate defendant. We will not stop until your family gets justice.
Llame al 1-888-ATTY-911. Lupe Peña habla con usted directamente — sin intérpretes.
