In the Coastal Bend of Texas, from the neighborhoods in Aransas Pass to the busy weekend traffic heading toward the entertainment hubs of Corpus Christi, families trust that a Saturday afternoon at a trampoline park will end with happy memories and tired children. But for too many parents in Aransas Pass, that afternoon ends in a trauma bay at Driscoll Children’s Hospital.
We have spent more than 25 years watching the commercial trampoline industry expand across Texas. We have seen these parks marketed as “safe family fun” while our local children arrive at emergency rooms with injuries that look like they belonged in a high-speed car wreck on Highway 35. One bounce. One bad landing. One life changed forever.
As Kaitlin “Kati” Hill told ABC News after her three-year-old son Colton suffered a broken femur in a body cast: “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.” At Attorney911, we know that scream. We represent the families who were told “we had no idea” by the park staff, only to discover that the industry has known about these dangers for decades.
Our managing partner, Ralph Manginello, brings over two decades of trial experience and admission to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to every case. We don’t just handle personal injury; we dismantlecorporate defense shields. Whether your child was injured at an Urban Air, a Sky Zone, or on a backyard trampoline in an Aransas Pass neighborhood, we know how to build the case that makes corporate defendants pay.
If your family is dealing with the aftermath of a catastrophic trampoline injury in Aransas Pass, call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. Our association with former insurance defense attorney Lupe Peña gives us an inside look at the playbook the parks use to deny your claim. We know where the holes are in their waivers, and we know how to find the insurance money they try to hide.
Why Aransas Pass Trampoline Injuries Aren’t “Accidents”
When a child is launched by a double-bounce or falls through a torn mat onto concrete, the park manager in Aransas Pass will likely call it a “freak accident.” We call it a business decision.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has formally advised against recreational trampoline use since 1999. That is over 25 years of medical consensus that the trampoline park industry has chosen to ignore. ASTM F2970 is the safety standard the trampoline park industry actually wrote about itself to establish a safety floor. When a park in the Aransas Pass area violates these standards—by understaffing a court or failing to separate jumpers by size—they aren’t just being “sloppy.” They are choosing profit margins over your child’s safety.
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 slide onto concrete. The injury resulted in a traumatic brain injury. The waiver was signed. The jury found gross negligence anyway. That is the largest reported verdict of its kind in the United States, and it happened right here in South Texas. It proves that a piece of paper signed at a kiosk is not a wall; it is a speed bump that we know how to clear.
The 48-Hour Evidence Crisis in Aransas Pass
After a trampoline injury, the clock doesn’t just start for the statute of limitations. It starts for the destruction of evidence. Most trampoline parks in the Aransas Pass region use digital surveillance systems that overwrite footage in as little as 7 to 30 days.
If you wait two weeks to call a lawyer, the video of the attendant on his phone while your child was double-bounced is likely gone. The incident report you filled out might be “revised” in the park’s computer system. The foam pit might be refilled to hide a compaction defect.
Our firm is built for speed. Within 24 hours of your retention, we send a formal spoliation letter by certified mail to the park, the franchisor, and their insurance carrier. We demand the preservation of:
- Multi-angle surveillance DVR footage in its original native format.
- The kiosk waiver database and the specific metadata of your signature transaction.
- Attendant shift logs and training records for every “court monitor” on duty.
- Daily pre-opening inspection logs that often reveal “known but unrepaired” defects.
We don’t rely on the park’s honesty. We rely on forensic digital examiners to interrogate their systems. If the park tells us the video “glitched,” we look for the Mathew Knight pattern—a Georgia case where a jury awarded $3.5 million after defense video “happened” to fail on four cameras simultaneously.
Breaking the Aransas Pass Trampoline Waiver
The most common reason parents in Aransas Pass hesitate to call an attorney is the “Member Waiver” they signed on an iPad. The park’s insurance adjuster will tell you the case is closed because you accepted the “inherent risks.”
They are wrong. Our associate attorney Lupe Peña used to sit on the other side of the table, defending these same recreational businesses. He knows that Texas law is particularly strict about what a waiver can and cannot do. Under the Dresser v. Page Petroleum “fair notice” doctrine, a waiver must be conspicuous and explicitly use the word “negligence.” Many kiosk waivers fail this test.
More importantly, the Texas ruling in Munoz v. II Jaz Inc. established that a parent generally cannot sign away a minor child’s right to sue for personal injuries. Your signature might bar your own claims for medical bills, but it does not bar your child’s claim for the pain, suffering, and permanent impairment they have endured.
For our Spanish-speaking families in Aransas Pass, the Delfingen US-Texas v. Valenzuela doctrine is a powerful weapon. If the park presented you with an English-only waiver and you primary language is Spanish, you may not have formed a valid contract at all. Lupe Peña habla con usted directamente. We ensure the language barrier isn’t used as a weapon against your family.
Catastrophic Injuries and the Medicine of Trampolining
We don’t just “handle” injury cases; we litigate the medicine. A “broken leg” at a trampoline park in Aransas Pass is rarely just a broken leg. It is often a Salter-Harris Type II fracture of the distal tibia—a growth plate injury.
Because children’s bones are still developing, a fracture through the physis (growth plate) can lead to a lifetime of angular deformity or limb-length discrepancy. This damage may not manifest until years after the injury, when the child reaches a growth spurt and the bone stops growing correctly. We retain pediatric orthopedic surgeons to project the next decade of medical monitoring your child will need.
Our firm is uniquely positioned to handle trampoline-related rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney failure. We currently litigate a $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston involving rhabdo—the same pathophysiology seen in children who jump for extended sessions in hot, poorly ventilated parks without proper hydration. If your child had “cola-colored” urine or listlessness after a park visit, you are dealing with a medical emergency that we know how to prove in court.
The 5-Layer Stack: Who We Actually Sue
When we say we hold “Sky Zone” or “Urban Air” accountable, we are looking at a complex corporate architecture. The operator LLC in Aransas Pass is often undercapitalized. To recover the millions needed for a spinal cord injury, we have to go upstream.
We perform corporate archeology on every case to identify:
- The local Operator LLC (the entity on the lease).
- The Multi-Unit Franchisee (the business owner).
- The Franchisor (e.g., Sky Zone Franchising LLC or UATP Management LLC). In the Damion Collins case, an arbitrator held the franchisor responsible for 40% of a $15.6 million award because of “systemic failure” in safety protocols.
- The Parent Company (Sky Zone, Inc. backed by Palladium Equity or Unleashed Brands backed by Seidler Equity).
- The Component Manufacturer (the vendor who made the defective harness, the torn mat, or the shallow foam pit).
We treat these conglomerates with the same tenacity Ralph Manginello used when litigating against BP after the Texas City refinery explosion. Their fleet of corporate lawyers doesn’t intimidate us; we’ve already beaten them before.
Backyard Trampolines and the Attractive Nuisance in Aransas Pass
Not every injury happens at a commercial park. Backyard trampolines across Aransas Pass neighborhoods like Pelican Landing or Highland Point are often America’s most dangerous consumer products.
If your child was injured on a neighbor’s trampoline, Texas applies the “attractive nuisance” doctrine. A homeowner has a duty to secure a trampoline that they know is likely to attract children who cannot appreciate the danger.
Furthermore, we investigate the product itself. Many backyard trampolines from brands like Jumpking, Skywalker, or Bouncepro (Walmart’s private label) have extensive recall histories involving frame weld failures and net collapses. We handle strict product liability claims that reach the manufacturer’s deep-pocket insurance layers, even when a neighbor’s homeowners’ policy has a “trampoline exclusion.”
Frequently Asked Questions for Aransas Pass Families
Can I sue if I signed the waiver?
Yes. In Texas, waivers cannot release a park from “gross negligence.” If the park knowingly violated ASTM F2970 standards—like allowing an adult and a small child to share a court—that is often enough to defeat the waiver. Additionally, under Munoz, your child’s claim likely survives regardless of what you signed.
How much is my child’s trampoline injury case worth?
Valuation is based on the life-care plan. A catastrophic cervical injury can lead to settlements in the $5M to $15M range. Even a severe pediatric fracture with growth-plate involvement can reach the mid-six figures when we account for future corrective surgeries and permanent impairment.
They offered to pay our ER copay. Should I take it?
Do not accept “Med-Pay” without talking to us. That small check often comes with a “Release of All Claims” on the back. It is a Trojan Horse designed to end a million-dollar case for a few thousand dollars.
How long do I have to sue a trampoline park in Texas?
The statute of limitations is 2 years. While it is “tolled” for minors until they turn 18, waiting is a disaster for your evidence. The video is gone in 30 days. The witnesses quit their jobs. We need to file fast to preserve the facts.
What is a “double bounce”?
It’s physics. When a heavier person lands just as a smaller person is pushing off, the energy transfer multiplies the launch force by up to 4x. The smaller person is essentially launched from a catapult. This is the #1 cause of shattered femurs in Texas parks.
Your Recovery Starts with the Spoliation Letter
What happened to your child wasn’t just “bad luck.” It was the predictable output of a facility built for throughput instead of safety. The parent conglomerate behind that Aransas Pass-area park has a risk management team working on their side. You need a team that has already gone head-to-head with Fortune 500 companies and won.
As our client Chad Harris said: “You are NOT just some client… You are FAMILY to them.” We fight for Aransas Pass families as if they were our own.
You pay nothing unless we win. We advance every expert fee—the biomechanical engineer, the life-care planner, and the pediatric orthopedic consultant. Your child’s recovery fund stays intact.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 today. Our spoliation letter is already drafted and waiting for your call to go out. The evidence is being overwritten every hour. Don’t let the park hide what happened to your child.
Hablamos Español. 1-888-ATTY-911. Three Texas offices. National authority.
A Breakdown of Trampoline Park Attractions and Hazards
While the open-jump courts are the most common site of injury, modern parks in the Aransas Pass region have added increasingly dangerous features for “wow factor.” We litigate injuries involving:
| Attraction | Signature Mechanism | Negligence Trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Foam Pits | Cervical hyperflexion / Head-first entry | Compacted foam; depth below 8-inch ASTM spec |
| Sky Rider | Strangulation by harness cord | Design defect; failure to supervise harness |
| Climbing Walls | Free fall onto concrete subfloor | Auto-belay failure; unpadded landing zones |
| Dodgeball | Jumper-on-jumper collision | Mixing age/weight classes on same court |
| Airbags | Under-inflation “bottoming out” | Failure to check PSI levels of stunt bags |
| Dunk Lanes | Wrist/head strike on rim or base | Improper clearance; failed frame padding |
The Systemic Failure of Staff Training
The person watching your child at a park is, on average, a 16-to-19-year-old making near minimum wage. In most states, including Texas, there is no requirement that they know CPR or have basic first aid training.
ASTM F2970 requires court monitors to be trained in a specific curriculum, but many parks provide only a two-to-four-hour orientation video. When the Urban Air Southlake reviewer noted that staff were “instructed by management to NOT call 911,” she exposed the corporate culture of the industry. They want to downplay the injury to protect the brand, while your child is in agonizing pain.
We subpoena the personnel files, the training logs, and the time-clock data. We show the jury that the “safety monitor” wasn’t just distracted—they were set up to fail by a corporate office that refused to pay for proper staffing levels.
The Role of Pediatric Life-Care Planning
In a catastrophic case, your child’s medical bills are the smallest part of the damages. The real cost is the next sixty years. We build a Pediatric Life-Care Plan (LCP) that accounts for:
- Corrective osteotomies needed at ages 12, 14, and 18 for growth arrest.
- Annual neurological and cognitive testing for TBI survivors.
- Lifetime durable medical equipment—wheelchairs, orthotics, home modifications.
- The “Cognitive-Earning Cascade” where a childhood TBI reduces adult lifetime earnings.
Most generalist firms don’t know how to calculate these “hidden” damages. We do. We ensure that the settlement doesn’t just pay today’s bills, but secures your child’s entire future.
Contact Attorney911 Now
If you are standing in a hospital room right now, thinking about the waiver or the “danger” signs you saw in the lobby—stop. This isn’t your fault. You were an invitee at a business that promised safety and delivered a body cast.
Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña are ready to take your call.
Call (888) 288-9911.
Attorney911 | The Manginello Law Firm
Houston · Austin · Beaumont · Aransas Pass
