Products Liability Law Reporter

A federal district court held that the owner and operator of a trampoline park may be liable under a products liability theory to a guest who fractured her ankle after falling into a ball pit.

Jauquel Jones went to Urban Air Trampoline and Adventure Park with her family. While going through the park’s Warrier Course obstacle course, she lost her grip on the monkey bars that hung over a ball pit filled with plastic balls the size of baseballs. She fell into the ball pit, and her foot struck a hard surface underneath the balls. She suffered a fractured ankle that required surgery.

Jones sued UrbanStrong, LLC, alleging strict liability claims for defective design of the Warrior Course and failure to warn about its dangers. The defendant moved to dismiss, arguing that the Warrior Course did not qualify as a product under Illinois tort law. The defense argued that Illinois case law exempts indivisible components of a building or structure from strict products liability and that the Warrior Course is indivisible from the building in which it was installed.

Denying the defense motion, the district court noted that for a strict products liability claim to survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff must allege that the product’s condition resulted from its manufacturing or design, the condition made the product unreasonably dangerous, the condition existed when the product left the defendant’s control, the plaintiff suffered personal injury, and the injury was proximately caused by the condition. Citing relevant case law, the court found that a defective item associated with a building may give rise to a products liability claim where the item has not become an indivisible component part of the building or structure, such as a dumbwaiter or conveyor belt.

Applying these principles, the court rejected the defense argument that the Warrior Course was not a product. The court reasoned that the plaintiff had alleged the obstacle course’s various component parts, including the ball pit and hard surface underneath it, caused her injury. Although a hard floor is typically the kind of indivisible part of a building excluded from products liability, the court said, plastic balls in a ball pit are not similarly installed into a building. Moreover, the court said, the monkey bars may have had an indivisible identity before their installation into the trampoline park, and they are severable from the building, making them products for strict liability purposes.

Consequently, the court held dismissal for the defense was not warranted.

Citation: Jones v. Urbanstrong, LLC, 2024 WL 774907 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 26, 2024).

Plaintiff counsel: AAJ member James Gay, Chicago.