Maryland Theme Park Injury Lawyer

When a Rider's Own Conduct Is Questioned: Maryland's Contributory Negligence Rule

Maryland's fault rule is the first thing that sets it apart. Maryland follows contributory negligence, a rule that bars an injured person from recovering anything if their own carelessness helped cause the injury. In Coleman v. Soccer Association of Columbia, filed July 9, 2013, the Court of Appeals of Maryland (now the Supreme Court of Maryland) described the rule this way: a plaintiff whose negligence contributes proximately to the injury "is barred from all recovery." The Court said it had the authority to change this common-law rule, but it declined and left any change to the General Assembly. The rule comes from that court decision, not from a statute.

The rule matters most at the moment fault is argued. A park may say a rider ignored a posted instruction, moved a restraint or stepped somewhere off limits. Under Maryland's rule, that argument does not reduce the claim. If it is accepted, it ends the claim. So the facts of exactly how the accident happened carry unusual weight in Maryland.

Two legal theories usually sit underneath a park injury claim. Premises liability is the duty a property owner or operator owes to visitors on its grounds to deal with dangerous conditions. Product liability is a separate theory aimed at a defective product, such as a ride component or a ride restraint, meaning the lap bar, harness or belt that holds a rider in place. If the injury came from the condition of the grounds, the questions are whether the park owed a duty, whether it fell short of that duty, and whether that shortfall caused the injury and the losses. If it came from equipment, the questions are whether the equipment was defective and whether that defect caused the injury. The site's general theme park injury claim overview covers both theories in more depth.

The practical question, then, is how the park is likely to describe the rider's own conduct and what the record shows about it.

What Kind of Accident It Was: Rides, Grounds, and Water Attractions

The kind of accident usually decides which theory fits. Injuries at Maryland amusement parks tend to fall into a few broad groups.

Ride injuries can involve a mechanical failure, a restraint that does not hold, or the way the ride was run, such as loading, dispatch or stopping. A mechanical or restraint problem may point toward a product-liability question about the ride's design or parts. How the ride was operated points more toward the operator's conduct. Some injuries come from ride forces rather than an impact; the site's page on roller coaster brain injury explains that mechanism.

Grounds injuries are falls and other hazards on the property: wet surfaces near attractions, uneven walkways, stairs, queue areas and crowd crush points. These are usually premises-liability questions about the condition of the property and what was done about it.

Water attractions, including wave pools, water slides and lazy rivers, can cause impact injuries, cuts and falls. Drowning and near-drowning are a separate subject covered on a sibling site.

Children raise their own questions, because height and weight limits and ride suitability rules exist for a reason, and how they were applied at the gate can matter.

None of these accidents, on its own, proves that a ride was defective or that anyone was careless, and many cases involve more than one theory. The early question is whether the problem was the condition of the property, the product, or both, because that shapes which businesses and records come into the picture.

When Several Businesses Run a Park: Who May Be Responsible

Responsibility at a park is often spread across several businesses. A ride operator is the company that runs the ride day to day and the staff who load, check and dispatch riders. The operator is often also the park's owner, but not always.

Potential defendants by type include:

• The park owner or operator, under premises liability, for the condition of the grounds and the way rides are run.
• The ride manufacturer or the maker of a component such as a restraint, under product liability.
• A maintenance or inspection contractor, where an outside company serviced or checked the ride.

Sorting these out matters because a claim aimed only at the wrong business can leave the responsible one out.

Some parks, pools and recreation facilities are owned or run by a local government, and Maryland adds a step for those. Under section 5-304 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article of the Maryland Code, an action for unliquidated damages against a local government or its employees may not be brought unless written notice of the claim is given within one year after the injury. The notice must state the time, place and cause of the injury. It must be given in person or by certified mail, return receipt requested, bearing a United States Postal Service postmark, by the claimant or the claimant's representative. If the local government is a county, notice generally goes to the county commissioners or county council.

The statute has exceptions. It does not apply to actions against certain nonprofit corporations listed in section 5-301 or to actions brought under section 5-117. It also does not apply if, within one year after the injury, the local government had actual or constructive notice of the injury or of the defect or circumstances that caused it. And a court may, on motion and for good cause, hear the suit without the notice unless the local government shows its defense was prejudiced. Claims against the State of Maryland itself follow different rules that this section does not cover.

Who owns or runs the facility is often the first thing worth finding out, since a local-government owner brings in the notice step. An attorney can help identify the businesses or public bodies involved and whether section 5-304's notice step and its exceptions apply.

When a Claim Is Filed or a Park Points to Recreational Use: Maryland Deadlines and the Recreational-Use Rule

Section 5-101 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article of the Maryland Code reads: "A civil action at law shall be filed within three years from the date it accrues unless another provision of the Code provides a different period of time within which an action shall be commenced." The local-government notice described above is a separate requirement that can apply alongside this period.

When a claim accrues in favor of a minor or a mental incompetent, section 5-201 applies. When a claim subject to section 5-101's subtitle, or to the wrongful-death subtitle, accrues in favor of a minor or a mental incompetent, the action must be filed within the lesser of three years or the applicable limitation period after the disability is removed. For a minor, that is the point the statute treats as the end of minority. The section does not apply if the limitation period has more than three years left to run when the disability is removed. Imprisonment, absence from Maryland and marriage are not disabilities that extend the period.

Maryland also has a recreational-use rule, which a park may raise. In plain terms, section 5-1103 of the Natural Resources Article says that a landowner who lets people onto its land for recreational or educational purposes generally owes them no duty to keep the premises safe or to warn of a dangerous condition, use, structure or activity, except as section 5-1106 recognizes. Section 5-1106 limits that protection. It does not reduce liability for a willful or malicious failure to guard or warn against a danger. Except as section 5-1109(a)(2) provides, it also does not reduce liability for injury where the owner charges the person who enters for recreational or educational use. Money the owner receives for leasing land to the State or a political subdivision is not a charge.

For a visitor, this means whether admission was paid can matter. Because most commercial parks sell admission, the charge condition is often the deciding question, though whether the rule reaches any particular property depends on its facts. A ticket or receipt can therefore matter beyond proving presence at the park.

When Losses Are Counted: How Maryland's Noneconomic Damages Cap Works

Maryland law separates money losses from human losses. Economic damages cover losses such as medical expenses, lost earnings and the cost of future care. Noneconomic damages are defined in section 11-108 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article of the Maryland Code. In a personal-injury action they mean "pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, loss of consortium, or other nonpecuniary injury." They do not include punitive damages.

Section 11-108 puts a ceiling on that second category, and the ceiling depends on when the claim arose. For personal-injury causes of action arising on or after July 1, 1986, the limit was $350,000. For personal-injury or wrongful-death causes of action arising on or after October 1, 1994, an award may not exceed $500,000, except as a further provision addresses for wrongful death. That limit "shall increase by $15,000 on October 1 of each year beginning on October 1, 1995," and each increased amount applies to causes of action arising between October 1 of that year and September 30 of the next.

Because the cap is written for noneconomic damages, the line between the two categories matters when weighing long-term care, therapy and lost work, which are economic losses. Records of those costs, and of the accident date, help show which category each loss falls in and which cap figure may apply.

The cap also sits behind the contributory negligence rule: if that rule bars recovery, the cap never comes into play.

Records and Information That Often Matter in These Cases

Records shape almost every question this page has raised, from which theory fits to whether the rider did anything that could be called contributory negligence. After an injury at a Maryland park, the records that usually matter include:

• The incident or accident report made at the park, and any report number.
• Medical records, starting with first aid or emergency-room notes.
• Photographs and video of the scene, the ride, the hazard and the injury, including anything taken by family or other guests.
• The names and contact details of people who saw what happened.
• The physical item involved, where there is one, such as a broken piece of equipment or damaged gear.
• Tickets, receipts, season-pass records or other proof of entry, which can also bear on the recreational-use charge condition.

Injured people and families often gather these because they show the condition of the ride or property at the time, which a later inspection may not. Where a single finding of fault by the rider can end a claim, a photo or witness account can carry real weight. Background on how injuries are counted nationally appears on the site's page about ride accident statistics.

Wrongful Death After a Fatal Accident at a Maryland Park

For a family after a death, Maryland's wrongful-death statute decides who the claim belongs to and how long the family has. Wrongful death is a claim for the losses a death causes to the people the law names. Under section 3-904 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article of the Maryland Code, an action is, with stated exceptions, "for the benefit of the wife, husband, parent, and child of the deceased person." The exceptions bar a parent from benefiting in certain cases involving that parent's crimes or acts listed in the statute, or where the parent caused the child's death. Section 11-108 separately refers to "primary" and "secondary" claimants in a death action, as section 3-904 describes them. The statute directs that any amount recovered be divided among the beneficiaries in shares the verdict directs.

Section 3-904 provides that, except for its occupational-disease rules, an action "shall be filed within three years after the death of the injured person." The period runs from the death, not from the accident.

The contributory negligence rule applies here too, and section 11-108 defines noneconomic damages in a death action to include mental anguish, emotional pain and suffering, and loss of society, companionship, comfort, care, guidance and similar losses, subject to its cap.

Families working out who the statute names and how the death-based deadline applies may want to consider a conversation with our attorney about those questions.