“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 is Kaitlin “Kati” Hill, telling ABC News about the moment her three-year-old son, Colton, suffered a broken femur at a trampoline park. Her warning, shared over 240,000 times, echoes what we hear from parents in Universal City and across Bexar County every month. They thought it was “safe family fun.” They had no idea.
At Attorney911, we know exactly what is happening behind the colorful foam pits and neon lights of trampoline parks serving the Universal City area. We represent the families standing at the bedside at University Hospital in San Antonio, watching a pediatric surgeon explain what a destroyed growth plate at age nine means for a child’s future. We know that when a child is injured at Urban Air on Fourwinds Drive or The Rush Fun Park on Pat Booker Road, the clock doesn’t just start ticking for medical recovery—it starts ticking for the evidence.
One bounce. One landing. One bad business decision by a park operator. That is all it takes to change a life in Bexar County. If your child was hurt, you aren’t just looking for “a lawyer.” You need the team that has spent 25 years making corporate defendants pay. You need Ralph Manginello and an associate attorney like Lupe Peña, who used to defend these same recreational businesses and knows precisely where their waivers are full of holes.
The Predicable Output of a Broken System in Universal City
A trampoline injury at a commercial park in Universal City is almost never an “accident.” It is the predictable output of a systemic architecture designed to maximize revenue and minimize safety costs. Since 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has formally advised against recreational trampoline use, a position they reaffirmed in 2012 and 2019. For over a quarter-century, the medical consensus has been clear: trampolines do not belong in a recreational environment for children.
The trampoline park industry ignored this consensus. Instead, companies like Sky Zone, Inc. (formerly CircusTrix LLC and backed by Palladium Equity Partners) and Unleashed Brands (the parent of Urban Air, acquired by Seidler Equity Partners in 2023) built an empire of interconnected beds. To give the appearance of safety, the industry wrote its own voluntary standards: ASTM F2970.
We cite ASTM F2970 from memory because we have spent our careers exposing how often it is violated. This standard requires specific attendant-to-jumper ratios, age-separated jumping zones, and foam pit depth specifications. Yet, on a Saturday afternoon in Bexar County, when the parking lot is full and the birthday parties are overlapping, those standards are the first thing the park ignores to save on labor costs.
The Physics of the Catastrophe: Double-Bounce Multipliers
When our firm builds a case for a family in Universal City, we don’t rely on the park’s story. We retain biomechanical engineers to model the physics of what happened. The most common mechanism we see is the “double-bounce.”
In a double-bounce, two jumpers on the same bed bounce out of phase. When a 200-pound adult lands just as a 60-pound child is pushing off, kinetic energy transfers through the mat. The child’s launch force can be multiplied by up to 4x. The child isn’t jumping anymore; they have become a projectile. This energy transfer is why “my kid just landed” results in a comminuted femoral shaft fracture requiring intramedullary nailing.
ASTM F2970 was supposed to prevent this by requiring monitors to enforce “one person per bed.” But if the monitor—who is often a 17-year-old making minimum wage—is on their phone or watching another court, that physics-driven catastrophe is inevitable.
Dismantling the Waiver: Why That iPad “Agreement” Is Not a Wall
The first thing a park manager or an insurance adjuster will tell a Universal City parent is, “You signed the waiver at the kiosk; you can’t sue.”
Think again.
That piece of paper you signed while your kids were tugging on your arm is not an automatic shield for the park. Texas courts have a long history of voiding these waivers, and we know exactly which attack vectors work.
1. The Gross Negligence Carve-Out
No waiver in Texas can release a defendant from “gross negligence.” In the landmark Harris County case of Max Menchaca v. Cosmic Jump, a jury awarded $11.485 million—including $6 million in punitive damages—after a 16-year-old fell through a torn trampoline slide onto bare concrete. The park knew the slide was ripped. They didn’t fix it. The waiver was signed, and the jury found gross negligence anyway. We look for that same subjective awareness and conscious indifference in every Universal City case.
2. The Munoz Minor-Waiver Rule
Under the controlling Texas case of Munoz v. II Jaz Inc., a parent generally cannot sign away a minor child’s right to sue for personal injuries. While the Texas Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling in Cerna v. Pearland Urban Air made it harder to avoid arbitration, it did not change the fact that a child’s substantive right to recover for negligence survives their parent’s signature in many contexts.
3. The Fair Notice and Dresser Doctrine
Texas law requires that any release of future negligence be “conspicuous” and follow the “express negligence doctrine.” Under Dresser Industries v. Page Petroleum, if the release isn’t in contrasting colors, bolded, or clearly set apart, it fails the fair notice test. Many kiosk waivers at Bexar County parks are buried in twenty screens of click-through text. We argue those aren’t contracts—they’re deceptive traps.
4. The Delfingen Spanish-Formation Attack
In Universal City and throughout the San Antonio metro, many families are primary Spanish speakers. Under the Delfingen US-Texas v. Valenzuela doctrine, a Texas court may deny enforcement of an agreement if the park didn’t provide a Spanish translation and the signer lacked English literacy. If you are a hablamos español family, Lupe Peña can speak with you directly about how the park’s failure to provide a waiver you could understand makes that waiver a legal nullity.
The Evidence Clock: Why the Next 7 Days Are Critical
While you are focusing on your child’s surgery, the trampoline park’s risk management team is already at work.
Evidence in these cases is engineered to vanish. Park surveillance DVR systems in Universal City are typically set to overwrite in as little as 7 to 30 days. Incident reports, which often contain damaging admissions by staff immediately after the event, can be “revised” or “finalized” on corporate servers with metadata we must capture. Kiosk waiver version histories often purge on rolling 72-hour cycles.
This is why our spoliation letter goes out within 24 hours of your retention. We don’t just “request” evidence; we issue a formal demand to preserve everything:
- Multi-angle surveillance footage (before it’s overwritten).
- Attendant training records and shift logs.
- Daily pre-opening inspection logs (showing if the defect was known).
- The actual trampoline bed or foam block samples (before the pit is refilled).
Every minute the park delays a 911 call or a return phone call is a minute they are using to let the evidence clock run out. We stop that clock.
The Medical Reality: Pediatric Bones and Growth Plates
A “broken leg” at a trampoline park in Universal City is almost never “just a broken leg.” Because pediatric bone is more pliable and contains active growth plates (physes), the damage is often permanent.
We look for “Salter-Harris” fractures. A Salter-Harris Type II fracture of the distal tibia can mean that the bone which should have grown for the next six years won’t grow straight—or will stop growing entirely. This leads to limb-length discrepancies that may not manifest for years, eventually requiring corrective osteotomies or lifelong prosthetic lifts.
The Rhabdomyolysis Bridge
We are also one of the few firms in Texas with active medical-litigation experience in rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney failure. We are currently litigating a $10 million lawsuit against the University of Houston involving rhabdo—the same pathophysiology seen when a child jumps for 90 minutes in a hot indoor park without hydration. If your child had “cola-colored” urine or swelling that was misdiagnosed as “just a cramp” after a visit to a park, we know how to document the myoglobin cascade and make the institutional defendants pay.
Why Universal City Families Choose Attorney911
We have gone head-to-head with some of the largest corporations in the world, including BP, Walmart, Amazon, and FedEx. We aren’t intimidated by the private equity sponsors like Seidler Equity or Palladium Equity that own the national jump chains. They have a playbook for denying claims; we have a system for winning them.
- 25+ Years of Experience: Ralph Manginello is a federal court veteran admitted to the Southern District of Texas. He has seen the tactics corporate defense firms use to shield assets.
- Defense-Side Insider Knowledge: Lupe Peña used to sit on the other side of the table. He knows exactly how parks “down-play” injuries to avoid 911 calls.
- Hablamos Español: No interpreters, no delays. Su familia merece hablar con su abogado directamente.
- Contingency Fee: You pay nothing unless we win. We advance every expense—from biomechanical experts to pediatric life-care planners.
As our client Chad Harris said, “You are NOT just some client… You are FAMILY to them.” We treat the families of Universal City like our own because we know what is at stake.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue if I signed the electronic waiver at a Universal City park?
Yes. As we discussed, Texas law has multiple “escape valves” for these waivers. Between the Dresser conspicuousness rules, the Munoz protections for minors, and the Moriel gross negligence standard, a signed waiver is often just a speed bump, not a wall. In the Cosmic Jump case, the $11.485 million verdict proved that a Bexar County area jury will look past a waiver if the park chose profit over a child’s safety.
What if the park says it was my child’s fault for landing wrong?
The park will always try to blame the jumper. But ASTM F2970 puts the duty of supervision on the park. If the park allowed a 200-pound adult on a bed with your 60-pound child, or if they failed to maintain a foam pit to the required 8-inch depth, the “landed wrong” argument disappears. We use the concept of “negligent undertaking”—once the park agreed to watch your child, they had to do it reasonably.
How much is my child’s trampoline injury case worth?
Every case is unique, but we look for full-value recovery. This includes not just the ER bill from University Hospital, but the future medical care needed to monitor a growth plate for the next decade. For catastrophic spinal cord or brain injuries, we build life-care plans that can reach deep into the millions ($5M-$25M range) to cover lifetime attendant care and lost earning capacity.
What should I do if the park’s insurance company calls me tomorrow?
Do not talk to them. This is the “Friendly Adjuster” trap. They will sound concerned, but they are recorded every word to use against you in a deposition later. They may offer a “Med-Pay” check of $3,000 or $5,000. If you deposit that check, you might be signing away your right to a $1,000,000 recovery. Tell them you are represented by Attorney911 and hang up.
Is the foam pit at the park actually safe?
Many parks in Universal City are switching to airbags because the data has proven foam pits are dangerous. If a pit is compacted—meaning the blocks haven’t been rotated or replaced—your child might hit the concrete floor beneath. If your child suffered a neck injury in a foam pit, we investigate whether the pit met the industry specification.
The Case Starts Today
The trampoline park has a system for protecting its bottom line. It starts with the waiver at the kiosk and ends with the surveillance video being deleted next week. You need a system that is stronger.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 or (888) 288-9911 right now. We are available 24/7 to answer your questions and protect your child’s future. Hablamos Español. No fee unless we win. The spoliation letter is already drafted. Let’s get it on their desk today.
Attorney911 / The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC
Houston · Austin · Beaumont · Serving Universal City & Bexar County
La Ayuda Para Su Familia en Universal City
Si su hijo se lesionó en un parque de trampolines en Universal City o en cualquier parte del condado de Bexar, no deje que el documento que firmó le quite sus derechos. Muchos negocios en San Antonio usan documentos en inglés que las familias no entienden completamente. Bajo la ley de Texas, usted tiene derechos. Lupe Peña es nuestra abogada bilingüe y ella hablará con usted hoy mismo para explicarle cómo podemos pelear contra estas corporaciones. No pague facturas médicas que el parque debería pagar. Llame al 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos español. No paga nada a menos que ganemos.
