Maine Theme Park Injury Lawyer

How Maine Law Looks at an Injury at a Theme Park or Amusement Park

A park injury claim in Maine usually rests on one of two legal theories. The first is premises liability: the responsibility of the person or business that controls property for injuries caused by hazards on it, such as a slick surface or a broken railing. The second is product liability: the responsibility of those who design, make or supply a product, such as a ride or one of its parts, when the product is alleged to be defective and that defect is alleged to have caused harm.

Two other terms come up often. A ride operator is the business, or the employee, that runs a ride day to day: loading riders, checking restraints, starting and stopping the cycle. A ride restraint is the lap bar, shoulder harness, belt or other device meant to keep a rider in the seat.

For an injured person, a negligence claim comes down to four questions about what happened. Did the park or another party owe a duty of care? Was that duty breached? Did the breach cause the injury? Did the injury cause real losses, called damages? Being hurt on a ride does not by itself answer any of these; the facts of the day do.

Maine also has a statute that limits the duty some landowners owe. Section 159-A of title 14 of the Maine Revised Statutes, on limited liability for recreational or harvesting activities, says an owner, lessee, manager, easement holder or occupant of premises does not have a duty to keep the premises safe for others' entry or use for those activities, or to warn of hazards to people entering for those purposes. The section defines those activities as recreational activities conducted out of doors, including hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, skiing, boating, swimming and picnicking. Among its stated exceptions is liability for a willful or malicious failure to guard or warn against a dangerous condition, and one of its provisions refers to premises "not used primarily for commercial recreational purposes." Whether this section has any bearing on a particular Maine park depends on the facts and the full text of the section. For how these theories work across the country, the site's overview of a theme park injury claim covers the general picture.

Accident and Injury Scenarios at Maine Parks

Ride incidents are the scenario most people picture. They can involve a mechanical or structural failure, a restraint or harness that opened or did not lock, an abrupt stop, or a rider coming out of a seat. Some injuries come from the forces of the ride itself; the site's page on roller coaster brain injury explains how that can happen without a blow to the head.

Many injuries happen on the ground instead. Wet or slippery surfaces, uneven pavement, poor lighting along paths and queues, and crowds packed into tight spaces can all lead to falls. These cases usually point toward premises liability rather than product liability, which changes who may be involved and what records matter.

Water-park injuries other than drowning raise their own facts: an injury on a slide, a fall on a pool deck, or a question about how an area was supervised. Drowning and near-drowning cases are a separate subject this page does not cover.

Children are hurt at parks too, and a parent often carries the decisions alone. A minor's claim in Maine has its own timing rule under section 853 of title 14, explained in the deadlines section below.

The scenario shapes the question. A restraint that failed may lead toward the ride's design and maintenance. A fall in a walkway may lead toward how the grounds were kept. For a national picture of how often these injuries occur, see the site's page on ride accident statistics.

Who May Be Responsible for Your Injury at a Maine Park

A defendant is the person or business a claim is brought against. In a park injury, more than one party may have had a role.

The park or venue operator is the most common starting point. The business that runs the park controls its grounds and rides, and it owes a duty of care to the guests it invites in. Whether that duty was breached depends on the facts.

The ride manufacturer or designer may be involved when a ride's design or a component is alleged to be defective. That is where product liability comes in.

A maintenance or inspection contractor may be involved when an outside company serviced, repaired or inspected the ride or the grounds, and its work is in question.

A component or parts supplier may be involved when a specific part, such as a bolt, a sensor or a restraint latch, is alleged to have been defective.

Maine's comparative negligence statute speaks directly to cases with several defendants: section 156 of title 14 says each defendant is jointly and severally liable to the plaintiff for the full amount of the plaintiff's damages, and a defendant may ask the jury, through special interrogatories, to find each defendant's percentage of fault.

One more question matters early: whether a government ran the place where the injury happened. If the park, pool or facility was operated by the State or a local government, the Maine Tort Claims Act requires written notice of the claim, as section 8107 of title 14 sets out in the next section. Contracts, permits, signage and incident paperwork often show who owned, ran and maintained what.

Filing Deadlines Under Maine Law, and How Shared Fault Counts

A statute of limitations is the deadline for starting a lawsuit. Section 752 of title 14 of the Maine Revised Statutes, titled Six years, states: "All civil actions shall be commenced within 6 years after the cause of action accrues and not afterwards, except actions on a judgment or decree of any court of record of the United States, or of any state, or of a justice of the peace in this State, and except as otherwise specially provided." That last phrase matters: another Maine statute can set a different period for a particular kind of claim.

Children and some other people get more time. Section 853 of title 14, on persons under disability, says that if a person entitled to bring an action under sections 752 to 754 and the other sections it lists is a minor, mentally ill, imprisoned or outside the limits of the United States when the cause of action accrues, the action may be brought within the times limited after the disability is removed.

Claims against government carry a separate notice step. Under section 8107 of title 14, notice to governmental entity, a claimant or the claimant's personal representative or attorney must file a written notice within 365 days after the claim accrues, or later within the limits of section 8110 if the claimant shows good cause why notice could not reasonably have been filed in time. If the claimant was a minor when the claim accrued, notice may be presented within 365 days of turning 18, and a relative, attorney or agent may file for a minor or an incapacitated claimant. Notice of a claim against the State goes to the agency involved and the Attorney General.

Fault is the other half of the picture. Section 156 of title 14, comparative negligence, says a person's own partial fault does not defeat the claim, but damages are reduced to the extent the jury thinks just and equitable given the claimant's share of responsibility. The jury records the full damages and then reduces them in dollars and cents, not by percentage. "If such claimant is found by the jury to be equally at fault, the claimant may not recover."

These rules decide whether a claim can be heard at all, so the dates involved, a child's age, and whether a public body ran the facility are often the first facts worth writing down. Questions about timing and shared fault are the kind a conversation with our attorney can help sort through; a case evaluation request is one way to discuss them.

Damages Maine Law May Allow After a Park Injury

Damages are the losses the law measures in money after an injury. What Maine law allows in a given case depends on the state's current law and on the facts: how serious the injury was, what treatment it required, how it affected work and daily life, and whether the legal elements of the claim are met at all.

Injured people often think about their losses in two broad groups. One is the losses that come with bills and pay stubs, such as medical treatment, future care and lost earnings. The other is harder to put on paper, such as pain and the loss of activities a person once enjoyed. How Maine treats each depends on its current law, and any amount is subject to the fault reduction described in the section above.

Because damages depend so heavily on records, people often keep track of each bill, each appointment and each day of work missed as they happen.

What a Family Faces After a Fatal Accident at a Maine Park

When a death follows a park accident, Maine law places the claim in particular hands. Section 2-807 of title 18-C of the Maine Revised Statutes, actions for wrongful death, says a death caused by a wrongful act, neglect or default makes the party who would have been liable had the person lived liable for damages under the section.

Every wrongful-death action must be brought by and in the name of the personal representative or special administrator. A personal representative is the person appointed to handle a deceased person's estate. A special administrator is a person appointed for a more limited purpose. Family members do not bring the action in their own names. After funeral expenses and the costs of recovery, including attorney's fees, the amount recovered goes to the heirs under Maine's intestacy laws.

The action must be commenced within three years after the death. Where the death was caused by a homicide, the action may be commenced within six years of the date the personal representative or special administrator discovers there is a just cause of action against the person who caused it.

The section allows damages the jury considers fair and just for the pecuniary injuries resulting from the death. Damages go to the estate for medical, surgical and hospital care and for funeral expenses only if the jury, or a settlement, specifically allocates them there. The jury may also give damages not exceeding $1,000,000, adjusted for inflation under section 1-108, for the loss of comfort, society and companionship, including emotional distress arising from the same facts, and punitive damages not exceeding $500,000. A settlement on behalf of minor children is not valid unless a court approves it.

For a grieving family, the first practical question is often simply who will serve as personal representative, since the claim moves through that person.

Records and Information That Often Matter in These Cases

Records tell the story of what happened when memory and accounts differ. After a park injury, the records that usually matter include medical records showing the injury, the diagnosis and each step of treatment.

Incident or accident reports made at the park often matter as well. A report records what someone wrote down at the time; it does not by itself establish what caused an injury.

Photos and video of the ride, the restraint, the walkway or the hazard are things injured people and their companions often have on their phones. Images taken soon after an incident can show conditions that later change.

Names and contact information of witnesses, including other riders and bystanders, can help fill in details the injured person did not see.

Ride maintenance, inspection and service records can bear on both negligence and product-liability questions, since they show how a ride was kept and who worked on it.

Written communications with the park or its insurer, such as emails, letters and claim numbers, are often kept together with the rest. For a family after a death, the same records, along with documents showing who was appointed personal representative, usually form the core of the file.