Indoor trampoline park company held liable for its actions in creating safety rules for its sub-groups creating liability for itself from the sub-group’s customers.

The parent company knew the employee handbook, which contained safety rules, which was given to the companies operating trampoline parks would be used to keep the customers of the parks safe. When the employee handbook was badly written, the parent company was liable to the injured plaintiff.

We have seen this before in Bad luck or about time, however, you look at this decision, you will change the way you work in the Outdoor Recreation Industry. A second case will create greater concern and liability for actions of “safety” experts in the outdoor recreation industry.

Citation: Haines v. Get Air Tucson Incorporated, et al., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180500, 2018 WL 5118640

State: Arizona, United States District Court, D. Arizona

Plaintiff: Blake Haines

Defendant: Get Air Tucson Incorporated, et al

Plaintiff Claims: Negligence and Gross Negligence

Defendant Defenses:

Holding: for the Plaintiff on the negligence claim and for the defendants on the Gross Negligence claim

Year: 2018

Summary

A prior company of some sort created safety rules in an employee handbook which were poorly written. The prior or parent company gave these rules to the trampoline parks to use. A plaintiff argued, successfully, the parent company was liable to him because the rules were poorly written, and the court agreed.

Third party contractors are increasingly brought into lawsuits because of their actions. The contractors are hired to decrease the risk to the customers, and the courts are holding when they fail, they are liable for their actions.

Facts

These facts on how the injury occurred, and the relationship between the parties came from a different decision in this case.

On September 8, 2013 Haines was at the Get Air Tucson indoor trampoline park and performed a move where he flipped multiple times off of a platform and into a foam pit. Haines “suffered catastrophic injuries from the maneuver, including fractured cervical vertebrae resulting in paralysis.” Following this incident, Haines filed suit in Pima County Superior Court on September 5, 2014 against the following defendants: Get Air Tucson, Inc.; Get Air Tucson Trampolines, LLC; Get Air Management, Inc.; Get Air, LLC; Trampoline Parks, LLC; Patti Goodell; Jacob Goodell; Kiersten Goodell; Scott Goodell; Alan McEwan Jr.; Val Iverson, individually and as owner or operator of Trampoline Parks, LLC; Jane and/or John Does #s 1-20; ABC Corporations 1-10; XYZ Partnerships 1-10; and ABC Limited Liability Corporations (LLCs) 1-10. Haines alleged claims for negligence, negligent design, negligence in safety standards, negligent supervision, negligent hiring and training of personnel, piercing the corporate veil, and punitive damages. Id.

There are three parties to this lawsuit. The plaintiff who was injured at the Defendant Get Air Tucson’s facility, Get Air Tucson and GALLC. GALLC was a former trampoline park that is no longer in business but seemingly a parent company?

GALLC created an employee handbook to be used by its clients (trampoline parks or franchisors). The plaintiff claims he was injured because of the “allegedly deficient safety rules contained in the Employee Handbook.” The handbook does not clearly define what a somersault is. The plaintiff was injured when he did a flip.

As previously found by this Court, Plaintiff has presented evidence that GALLC developed a generic employee handbook (“EH”) for use in other Get Air trampoline parks as part of its support for the expansion of the Get Air business enterprise, and that the EH was used by Get Air Tucson.

The case had been referred to a magistrate who created an order dismissing the gross negligence claims but keeping the negligence claims. That magistrate’s order was then reviewed, which is the decision this article is based on.

Judge Markovich recommended that Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment be granted with respect to Plaintiff’s punitive-damages claim. Judge Markovich rejected Defendant’s other arguments. He found that, as a result of “the special business-customer relationship that was created when GALLC performed an undertaking to develop the EH [employee handbook] as part of its support work for the Get Air entities, ” GALLC owed Plaintiff a duty to exercise reasonable care in developing the safety rules in the EH. Judge Markovich found that summary judgment on the issue of a breach of the standard of care is precluded because there is a material factual dispute concerning whether the rule prohibiting somersaults in the EH was sufficient to prohibit the flip maneuver attempted by Plaintiff.

Analysis: making sense of the law based on these facts.

The defendant GALLC argued it had no duty to the plaintiff.

In its Motion for Summary Judgment, Defendant argues (1) it owed no duty to Plaintiff, (2) even if it owed a duty, it was not negligent because the EH prohibited the maneuver that led to Plaintiff’s injuries, (3) it no longer has any potential legal liability because the employee involved in the creation of the EH was dismissed with prejudice; (4) Plaintiff cannot prove causation, and (5) Plaintiff’s claim for punitive damages is factually unsupported.

The court then reviewed how a duty was created and what the courts looked for in making that decision.

To establish a defendant’s liability for a negligence claim, a plaintiff must prove: (1) a duty requiring the defendant to conform to a certain standard of care; (2) breach of that standard; (3) a causal connection between the breach and the resulting injury; and (4) actual damages.

Whether or not a duty exists is a legal question to be determined by a court of law. A duty can arise if a special relationship exists between the parties or because of an “undertaking” of the defendant.

Although there is evidence that the various Get Air enterprises were operated as a closely linked network, the Court does not find that Plaintiff and GALLC had a traditional business-customer relationship.

So, the relationship alone between the plaintiff and GALLC was not enough to create a duty. However, the court did find a relationship because of GALLC’s attempt to create safety rules in the employee handbook for its customers.

However, even though there was no direct business-customer relationship, Plaintiff and GALLC, nevertheless, had a special relationship based on GALLC undertaking to create safety rules for other Get Air trampoline parks, which GALLC included in a generic EH developed as part of its support work for the Get Air entities. Imposition of a duty based on this special relationship is supported by Arizona’s case law as well as sections 323 and 324A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts.

The Restatement (Second) of Torts states:

One who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of a third person or his things, is subject to liability to the third person for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to protect his undertaking, if

(a) his failure to exercise reasonable care increases the risk of such harm, or

(b) he has undertaken to perform a duty owed by the other to the third person, or

(c) the harm is suffered because of reliance of the other or the third person upon the undertaking.

Restatement (Second) of Torts § 324A (1965).

The court found that GALLC undertook to render services, the creation of the employee handbook, which contained safety rules, which were necessary to protect the customers of Get Air Tucson. Plaintiff alleged in its complaint that GALLC failed to exercise reasonable care for the creation of the safety rules, thus creating liability.

GALLC, failing to exercise reasonable care in developing the safety rules increased the harm to Get Air Tucson’s’ customers, like the plaintiff.

Additionally, the failure to perform a duty, development of reasonable safety rules, which Get Air Tucson owed to its customers, created liability.

The Court agrees with Judge Markovich that GALLC owed Plaintiff a duty to exercise reasonable care in the development of the safety rules contained in the generic EH supplied to Get Air Tucson.

The court also found that there was a genuine issue of material fact because GALLC allegedly breached its duty to exercise reasonable care in the creation of the safety rules when the definition of a somersault which was used in the rules, and the definition was not clear. The issue was, did the actions of the plaintiff flipping constitute a somersault?

On top of that, when the manual or rules are not clear or are ignored, this creates greater liability on the companies involved.

Even if the maneuver attempted by Plaintiff falls within a technical definition of the term “somersault, “as Defendant argues, Plaintiff has identified evidence showing that Get Air employees did not consider flips to be encompassed by the EH’s safety rule prohibiting somersaults.

The court found GALLC was liable not because of its relationships between the parties, but because its actions constituted an independent undertaking that created a duty.

However, as Judge Markovich found, Plaintiff is not asserting vicarious liability; rather, Plaintiff alleges that GALLC is independently negligent for undertaking to create a generic EH for use in other Get Air parks, including Get Air Tucson, and including allegedly deficient safety rules in that EH. The dismissal with prejudice of Val Iverson does not preclude Plaintiff from asserting a claim against GALLC for its own independent negligence, even if establishing the independent negligence of GALLC may require proof of Val Iverson’s negligence.

So Now What?

Safety is always scary. How much do you write? If you don’t write enough, you don’t cover everything, and you could be found liable. If you write too much you don’t cover everything, and you are still found liable because either you did not cover the issue at hand, or you did not follow the rules you created.

You can’t follow the rules if the rules are too much to remember. You can’t handle an incident with a notebook in one hand trying to figure out what to do next.

Worse, you are a third party, and you inspect or write safety issues, and you are now liable to the customers of your customer who you were trying to protect. In Bad luck or about time, however, you look at this decision, you will change the way you work in the Outdoor Recreation Industry the defendant did an inspection of the property. The injured plaintiff argued the inspection was insufficient, and the defendant owed her a duty.

In this case the rules where insufficient, badly written, and seemingly not enforced, creating a duty to the injured plaintiff.

If you are an inspector or a rule writer, a third-party contractor hired to teach, inspect or write you had better to it correctly and completely. On top of that you better have a great liability insurance policy and contract with your client to protect you.

If you are a third-party contractor, expect to see more claims like this in the future.

What do you think? Leave a comment.

Copyright 2019 Recreation Law (720) 334 8529

If you like this let your friends know or post it on FB, Twitter or LinkedIn

If you are interested in having me write your release, fill out this Information Form and Contract and send it to me.

Author: Outdoor Recreation Insurance, Risk Management and Law

To Purchase Go Here:

Facebook Page: Outdoor Recreation & Adventure Travel Law

Email: Jim@Rec-Law.US

By Recreation Law    Rec-law@recreation-law.com    James H. Moss

#AdventureTourism, #AdventureTravelLaw, #AdventureTravelLawyer, #AttorneyatLaw, #Backpacking, #BicyclingLaw, #Camps, #ChallengeCourse, #ChallengeCourseLaw, #ChallengeCourseLawyer, #CyclingLaw, #FitnessLaw, #FitnessLawyer, #Hiking, #HumanPowered, #HumanPoweredRecreation, #IceClimbing, #JamesHMoss, #JimMoss, #Law, #Mountaineering, #Negligence, #OutdoorLaw, #OutdoorRecreationLaw, #OutsideLaw, #OutsideLawyer, #RecLaw, #Rec-Law, #RecLawBlog, #Rec-LawBlog, #RecLawyer, #RecreationalLawyer, #RecreationLaw, #RecreationLawBlog, #RecreationLawcom, #Recreation-Lawcom, #Recreation-Law.com, #RiskManagement, #RockClimbing, #RockClimbingLawyer, #RopesCourse, #RopesCourseLawyer, #SkiAreas, #Skiing, #SkiLaw, #Snowboarding, #SummerCamp, #Tourism, #TravelLaw, #YouthCamps, #ZipLineLawyer, #RecreationLaw, #OutdoorLaw, #OutdoorRecreationLaw, #SkiLaw,