Iowa Theme Park Injury Lawyer

If You Were Partly at Fault: How Iowa Shares Blame for a Park Injury

If a park or its insurer suggests you were partly to blame, the rule that answers that point is section 668.3 of the Iowa Code. It provides: "Contributory fault shall not bar recovery in an action by a claimant to recover damages for fault resulting in death or in injury to person or property unless the claimant bears a greater percentage of fault than the combined percentage of fault attributed to the defendants, third-party defendants and persons who have been released pursuant to section 668.7, but any damages allowed shall be diminished in proportion to the amount of fault attributable to the claimant."

That rule is called comparative fault: fault is divided among everyone involved, measured as percentages. In plain terms, your own share reduces the damages allowed, and it ends the claim only when that share is greater than the combined share of the defendants and the other persons the statute names. The same section applies a parallel rule to claims for loss of services, companionship, society or consortium, measured by the fault of the person whose injury or death is the basis for those damages. When more than one party's fault is at issue at trial, the statute directs the jury to answer special questions, or the court to make findings, including the damages each claimant could recover if contributory fault were disregarded.

Two legal theories come up most often at parks. Premises liability is the idea that whoever owns or controls property can owe duties to the people on it, such as guests walking the grounds. Product liability is the idea that a maker or seller of a product, such as a ride or a ride restraint (the lap bar, harness or belt that holds a rider in place), may be responsible when a defect causes harm. A ride operator is the business or employee that runs a ride day to day.

What is at stake is money: each percentage point of fault assigned to you lowers what may be recovered, and a share greater than everyone else's combined ends the claim. A person in this position may weigh what they did, what the park did, and which theory fits the facts, which is something a conversation with our attorney can help sort out.

What Kind of Incident This Was, and Why It Matters

Injuries at Iowa amusement parks tend to fall into a few broad patterns, and each points toward a different legal theory.

Ride-related injuries can involve a mechanical failure, a ride restraint that opens or fails to hold, or a mistake by the ride operator, such as how a ride is loaded, started or stopped. A mechanical or restraint failure may raise product-liability questions about how the ride or part was designed, built or labeled. An operator's mistake more often raises questions about how the park ran the ride. Forces on some rides can also be linked to injuries that are not visible right away, a subject covered on our page on roller coaster brain injury.

Premises hazards arise away from the rides: wet surfaces, uneven walkways, missing or inadequate barriers, and crowds that are not managed. These usually raise premises-liability questions about what the property's owner or operator knew and did. At water parks, injuries can come from the slides, wave pools or gaps in supervision. Drowning and near-drowning are a separate subject this site does not cover.

Children are hurt in all of these settings, and Iowa treats a minor's deadline differently. Section 614.8 of the Iowa Code extends the time for minors so that they have one year after reaching majority, a rule explained with the other deadlines below.

For you, the type of incident decides which theory applies, which parties may be involved and, for product claims, which deadline may apply. If you are sorting through what happened, it may help to note whether a ride or part may have failed, a ride may have been run carelessly, or a hazard on the grounds was involved. How often such injuries occur nationally is summarized on our page of official ride accident statistics.

Who May Be Responsible for Your Injury at an Iowa Park

Responsibility at a park can be split among several parties, and Iowa law asks something different of each.

The park operator or property owner is the usual starting point under premises liability. The question is whether that party owed you a duty, breached it, and caused the injury and damages. How Iowa defines that duty for paying guests depends on the state's current law and the facts. A ride manufacturer or component maker may face a product-liability claim, which turns on a defect and causation. A maintenance or inspection contractor may owe duties arising from the work it agreed to do. Whether any of these parties is responsible depends on the facts, never on the injury alone.

Iowa's recreational-use statute may also come up if a landowner argues it owed you less. Under section 461C.4 of the Iowa Code, a holder of land who "invites or permits without charge" a person to use the property for a recreational purpose does not, by doing so, extend any assurance the premises are safe, confer the status of an invitee or licensee to whom a duty of care is owed, assume a duty solely by guiding or supervising the activity, or assume liability for injury caused by those persons' acts. Section 461C.6 of the Iowa Code preserves liability "for willful or malicious failure to guard or warn against a dangerous condition, use, structure, or activity," and where the holder charges people who enter for recreational use, with a stated exception for consideration received under certain government leases or agreements. Whether a commercial park falls within this statute depends on the facts.

When a city or another municipality runs a park, section 670.5 of the Iowa Code sets its own period, and when the state is involved, section 669.13 of the Iowa Code governs. Both are explained next.

What is at stake is who can be asked to pay, and under which deadline. If you were hurt, it may help to note who owned the land, who ran the ride, who made it and who maintained it, and whether you paid to enter. Those details are the starting point for a conversation with our attorney.

Deadlines That Can End an Iowa Park Claim Before It Starts

A missed deadline can end an Iowa claim regardless of its merits, so each one is stated here as the code states it.

The general rule is in section 614.1 of the Iowa Code: actions may be brought within the stated times "after their causes accrue, and not afterwards, except when otherwise specially declared." If your claim is for an injury to you, the period is two years for actions "founded on injuries to the person or reputation, including injuries to relative rights, whether based on contract or tort."

A statute of repose is an outer limit counted from a fixed event rather than from the injury. Subsection 2A of section 614.1 of the Iowa Code says product claims for death or injury against a manufacturer, assembler, designer, supplier of specifications, seller, lessor or distributor "shall not be commenced more than fifteen years after the product was first purchased, leased, bailed, or installed for use or consumption unless expressly warranted for a longer period of time" by one of those parties. The subsection also says it does not affect the time for a person found liable to seek contribution or indemnity from another whose actual fault made the product defective.

Section 614.8 of the Iowa Code extends the times in that chapter, and in chapters 669 and 670, so that minors have one year after attaining majority to bring an action or make a claim, except as provided in section 614.1, subsection 9, and except actions for penalties and forfeitures. It gives persons with mental illness one year after the disability ends.

Against a municipality, section 670.5 of the Iowa Code provides that, except as section 614.8 provides, a person "shall commence an action therefor within two years after the alleged wrongful death, loss, or injury."

Under the State Tort Claims Act, section 669.13 of the Iowa Code provides that, except as section 614.8 provides, a claim is "forever barred" unless, within two years after it accrued, it "is made in writing and filed with the director of the department of management." The time to begin suit is extended six months from the mailing of the attorney general's notice of final disposition, or from withdrawal of the claim under section 669.5, if it would otherwise expire sooner. A further six-month extension applies when a claim was filed under another law and a court or agency decides this chapter is the exclusive remedy. The section is the only statute of limitations for those claims.

What is at stake is whether a claim can be brought at all. Which deadline applies depends on who owned, ran or made what was involved, and on the injured person's age. That is one of the questions a conversation with our attorney can help sort out.

When a Ride Itself May Have Failed

When a ride or a ride restraint is at the center of an injury, the question shifts from how the park behaved to whether the product itself was defective. A product-liability claim generally has to show a defect, whether in design, manufacture or warnings, and that the defect caused the injury. Whether those elements are met depends on the facts. A ride's age, a malfunction or an earlier incident does not by itself prove a defect.

The fifteen-year repose rule in subsection 2A of section 614.1, set out above, makes the ride's history matter to you in a practical way. The period runs from when the product "was first purchased, leased, bailed, or installed for use or consumption," not from the day of the injury. A ride in service for many years, or a part replaced more recently, can raise questions about which date counts and whether an express warranty for a longer period exists.

If you were hurt on a ride, the records that usually matter include the park's incident report, photos and video of the ride and restraint, and anything showing the ride's make, model and serial number. Maintenance and inspection records, and documents showing when the ride or a part was bought, leased or installed, can bear on both the defect question and the repose date. For a family weighing these questions, the ride's identity and history are often as important as the injury itself.

What Records Can Show About an Iowa Park Injury

Records made close to the time of an incident are often the clearest picture of what happened, and they tie directly to what Iowa law asks: a duty, a breach, causation, damages, and how fault is shared under section 668.3.

Medical records and treatment documentation show the injury, the care given and its course. Incident or accident reports filed at the park record what the park noted at the time, though a report does not establish what caused an injury. Photos and video of the scene, the ride, the hazard and visible injuries can show conditions that later change. Names and contact information of witnesses, including other guests, can matter when accounts differ. Written communications from the park or its insurer form part of the record of what was said and when.

Posted warnings, height or weight restrictions and other signage can bear on two questions at once: what the park communicated, and how fault might be divided if a guest's own conduct is raised.

What is at stake is how well your account can be shown, including how much fault may be assigned to you. Much of this may already be in a phone, an email inbox or a stack of hospital paperwork; other records, such as maintenance logs or surveillance footage, are held by others. A person in this position may want to consider what they already have, and what remains with the park, a manufacturer or a contractor.

Wrongful Death After a Fatal Iowa Park Accident

A family after a death at a park is facing grief and practical questions at the same time, often while still learning what happened. Iowa's code addresses what happens to the damages in section 633.336 of the Iowa Code.

That section provides that when a wrongful act produces death, damages recovered "shall be disposed of as personal property belonging to the estate of the deceased." If the damages include loss of services and support of a deceased spouse, parent or child, the court apportions them among the surviving spouse, children and parents "in a manner as the court may deem equitable consistent with the loss of services and support" each sustained. Any recovery by a parent for the death of a child is subordinate to any recovery by the decedent's spouse or child.

The same section also addresses debts. If the decedent leaves a spouse, child or parent, wrongful-death damages are not subject to the debts and charges of the estate, except amounts owed to the department of health and human services for medical assistance under chapter 249A, paid on the decedent's behalf from the time of the injury until death.

What may be allowed depends on the facts, on Iowa's fault rules in section 668.3, and on the court's apportionment. The questions of who brings the action and when depend on Iowa's current law beyond this section. A family may want to consider talking these questions through, and requesting a case evaluation is one way to begin that conversation.