Key Points

  • The Superior Court of Pennsylvania reversed summary judgment for the Urban Air entities and reinstated Michael Ristaino's negligence complaint.
  • The court held that jumping on a worn-out trampoline is not a "common, frequent, and expected" risk at a trampoline park, so the no-duty rule did not bar the claims.
  • Expert evidence showed the trampoline bed was six years and three months old, beyond the manufacturer's six-to-18-month and the operator's own five-year replacement schedules.
  • The trial court erred by relying on the plaintiff's concession that trampolining is inherently risky without asking whether the injury arose from the activity or from the operator's maintenance.
  • Judge Dubow wrote the opinion, joined by President Judge Emeritus Ford Elliott; Judge Olson concurred in the result.

A Pennsylvania appeals court on Oct. 30 revived a negligence suit by a man hurt at an Urban Air trampoline park in Downingtown, holding that a rule shielding amusement operators from the inherent dangers of their attractions does not cover injuries blamed on a worn-out trampoline. The rule, known as the "no-duty" rule, provides that an amusement operator owes patrons no duty to guard against risks that are a common, frequent and expected part of the activity.

A three-judge Superior Court panel reversed a Chester County judge's grant of summary judgment to Urban Air Downingtown, Taraschi Adventures LLC, UATP Management LLC, Urban Air and UA Holdings LLC. The panel reinstated the complaint of the patron, Michael Ristaino, and sent the case back for further proceedings. Judge Dubow wrote the published opinion, which President Judge Emeritus Ford Elliott, a retired senior judge assigned to the court, joined. Judge Olson concurred in the result.

The decision separates two kinds of risk at an amusement venue. Under it, a patron's concession that an activity is dangerous does not end the case when evidence ties the injury to the operator's upkeep rather than to the activity itself. Jumping on a worn-out trampoline, Judge Dubow wrote, "is a risk that is not 'common, frequent, and expected' at a trampoline park." The opinion went on: "Rather, it is an unforeseeable and unanticipated risk."

Ristaino, then 42, was using a foam pit attraction on March 10, 2022, according to the opinion. The attraction consists of a long trampoline that leads into a pit of loose foam cubes. He suffered injuries that included a wedge compression of his first lumbar vertebra.

He sued in January 2023 and filed an amended negligence complaint the next month. The trial court overruled the companies' preliminary objections in April 2023, and the parties moved into discovery. That discovery included depositions of Ristaino, the Downingtown location's general manager, who also served as Urban Air's corporate representative, and two former Urban Air team members.

Ristaino's experts reported that the trampoline bed was six years and three months old on the day he was hurt. The manufacturer had recommended replacing it every six to 18 months, and the companies' own policy called for replacement every five years. The experts found a depression in the bed caused in part by "wear from many years of use without replacement."

In their report, the experts wrote that "the bed had turned soft & spongy due to excessive wear and its use beyond the manufacturer's recommended shelf life." They concluded that the worn condition contributed to the bed's instability and to Ristaino's inability to control his bounce. "It is our professional opinion that [Appellant] would not have experienced rubber legging leading to his injury had the bed been replaced as per the manufacturer's instruction," the report said. The experts also described other shortcomings in the companies' policies, procedures, manuals and employee training.

The companies moved for summary judgment in April 2025 and argued that the no-duty rule barred the negligence claims as a matter of law. Ristaino responded that his injuries came not only from jumping but from "the dangerous nature of the premises that resulted from improper supervision, training, policies, procedures, manuals, as well as due to defective trampoline mats which were not properly maintained and replaced." After a July 22, 2025, hearing, the trial court entered judgment for the companies and dismissed the complaint in an Aug. 14, 2025, order.

The trial court applied the rule because Ristaino had "conceded that trampoline usage involves inherent risks of physical injuries that can be serious or fatal," according to the appellate opinion. Judge Dubow wrote that the trial court "did not, however, differentiate between or analyze whether the risk posed to Appellant arose simply from his use of the trampoline or from a risk not inherent to the activity of trampolining."

The panel traced the rule to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's 1978 decision in Jones v. Three Rivers Management Corp. That case held that the rule does not displace an operator's duty "to protect patrons from foreseeably dangerous conditions not inherent in [an] amusement activity." In Jones, a fan walking through an interior walkway at Three Rivers Stadium was struck by a ball hit during batting practice through openings built into the wall over right field. The Supreme Court found that those openings were not "an inherent feature of the spectator sport of baseball."

The panel also relied on the Superior Court's 1998 decision in Telega v. Security Bureau Inc., which involved a fan at a Pittsburgh Steelers game who was knocked from his seat and trampled by aggressive fans who stripped him of a souvenir ball. The court held there that "being trampled by displaced fans is not a risk inherent in or so ordinary a part of the spectator sport of football such that it is certain to occur at any and every stadium in the Commonwealth."

Judge Dubow wrote that the question in each case is "whether the harm that caused the accident is a risk that a person engaging in the activity would find is 'common, frequent and expected.'" Viewing the record in Ristaino's favor, as the summary judgment standard requires, the panel found that he had offered evidence that "it was the worn-out nature of the trampoline and other maintenance deficiencies that caused his injuries."

The panel confined its review to whether the no-duty rule barred the negligence claims as a matter of law. Ristaino's appeal had also argued that the rule could not reach reckless or grossly negligent conduct, and the opinion does not separately address that contention.

The case now returns to the Chester County Court of Common Pleas, where Ristaino's reinstated negligence claims will proceed. The Superior Court said it would relinquish jurisdiction once the remand takes effect by operation of law.