Going to an amusement park is a fun way to spend the day. While you might expect the amusement park to be safe, unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. Injuries often happen at these parks for various reasons. You can deal with long hospital stays, missed work, and significant emotional and physical pain when you suffer from injuries. The amusement park should pay for those losses if its negligence caused your injuries.
To find out if an amusement park is liable for the harm you endured, a personal injury attorney can help. They can review your case’s details to determine how your accident happened. If the amusement park is found negligent, it might be liable. When amusement parks identify potential dangers, they must address them promptly. If not, you could hold them liable for injuries you sustained.
An Attorney Can Prove the Amusement Park’s Negligence Caused Your Injuries
An effective way to prove an amusement park is liable for your injuries is to provide evidence that your case satisfies the elements of negligence. A premises liability attorney can investigate your claims and show how your situation meets the criteria proving negligence. The elements are:
The Amusement Park Owed You a Duty of Care
The first element of negligence is the park owed you a duty of care. Amusement parks must protect their patrons from harm with reasonable care.
For example, amusement parks must properly maintain and inspect their rides to ensure they are in good working order before allowing patrons to ride on them. Patrons trust amusement parks to provide safe rides. They should uphold their duty to do what they can to ensure the riders stay safe.
The Amusement Park Breached Its Duty of Care
The next element of negligence your attorney must prove is how the amusement park breached its duty of care. Amusement parks can breach their duty when they fail to provide reasonable care.
For example, if the ride operators notice that a safety harness has malfunctioned several times and continue to allow riders to use that harness, it breaches its duty. Ride operators should know the procedures to report any safety issues and not allow patrons on the ride until they fix the issue.
The Amusement Park’s Breach of Duty Caused Your Injuries
Next, your attorney must prove you sustained your injuries because the amusement park breached its duty. You must prove that you wouldn’t have sustained injuries if the amusement park fulfilled its duty of care.
You Suffered Monetary and Non-Monetary Losses Because of Your Injuries
To seek compensation for your losses, you must first prove you suffered damages. Your attorney can explain the damages you incurred specifically related to your case. Examples of damages you could sustain after sustaining injuries in an amusement park could include:
- Medical care costs: These damages could include any injury-related costs you incurred because of your injuries. This could include an ambulance ride to the hospital, surgeries, diagnostic testing services, hospital stays, medications, and rehabilitative treatments.
- The income you lost: Your injuries could temporarily or permanently affect your ability to work. Lost income could also include any work benefits, bonuses, or overtime pay you lost.
- Future losses: If your injuries are severe, you could incur future losses. Future losses could include diminished earning capacity, in-home care nurses, or future medical bills.
- Pain and suffering: Physical pain you experienced because of your injuries.
- Emotional distress: Emotional issues you experienced because of your accident. For example, when sustaining injuries at an amusement park, people could develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or sleep issues because of the trauma they experienced.
- Loss of enjoyment of life: If you lost the ability to continue with the same level of participation in hobbies or activities that you could before the accident.
Again, your attorney can identify the damages you suffered. Then, they can calculate their value so you will know how much compensation to seek for your losses. They can gather and organize evidence to prove you sustained these damages because of the amusement park’s negligence.
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How Amusement Parks May Try to Avoid Liability
While amusement parks have liability insurance to cover injuries while patrons are on-site, they may still try to defend themselves against claims. Common strategies an amusement park could use to prevent the injured party from filing a claim include:
- Patrons of the park assume the risk. Many activities at amusement parks have inherent risks. When the patrons do these activities anyway, the park could state they assumed the risk of getting injured. Although to assume risk, the patron must have known there was a potential for risk. If the amusement park didn’t warn you of potential risks, this defense wouldn’t work.
- The patron didn’t follow safety procedures. Amusement parks could claim that you didn’t follow the safety procedures instituted by the park and, therefore, sustained injuries. Amusement parks could use this defense to lower or eliminate their liability altogether.
When you hire a personal injury attorney to take on your case, they can fight against the defenses the amusement parks may use to avoid liability.
Contact an Attorney If You Sustained Injuries at an Amusement Park
If you sustained injuries at an amusement park and the park won’t accept liability, an attorney could help. They can investigate the accident and build a case before your state’s statute of limitations deadline expires. When you hire a premises liability attorney to help with your case, you can protect yourself from being taken advantage of by the insurance company.
Contact Bogin, Munns & Munns for a free consultation with a premises liability attorney. During the consultation, you can expect to learn if the amusement park is liable for your injuries. If so, we can help you prove their liability so you can seek compensation for your losses. With an attorney by your side, you can have a more solid case when going up against the amusement park.
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