Who’s Liable for an Injury at Six Flags Great Adventure or Another NJ Amusement Park?
Liability for a New Jersey amusement park injury usually starts with the park operator, and it rarely stops there. Depending on what failed, the ride manufacturer, a maintenance contractor, or the attendant who loaded and restrained you may share responsibility. State law also sets a reporting deadline that expires long before the deadline to file suit, and missing it can bar a claim against the park operator that would otherwise be strong. Our Freehold premises liability attorneys handle injury claims arising on New Jersey properties open to the public, including amusement parks such as Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson.
Report the Accident to the Park in Writing Within 90 Days
New Jersey’s amusement ride safety law carries a requirement that catches many injured riders off guard. As a precondition to bringing suit against an amusement park operator, a rider must report all the details of the accident to that operator, in writing, within 90 days of the incident. That is separate from, and much shorter than, the two-year period New Jersey allows for filing most personal injury lawsuits. Note what the precondition does and does not reach. It governs suit against the amusement park operator. It does not bar a claim against a ride manufacturer, a component supplier, or an independent maintenance contractor, so a missed report does not always end the case.
Three qualifications soften that rule, and each of them can decide a case:
- The precondition does not apply unless the operator conspicuously posts notice of the reporting requirement in English and one other language, in at least five locations, including each entrance and exit, each place designated for receiving accident reports, and each first aid station.
- A rider who misses the 90 days may still be permitted to report within one year of the accident, at the discretion of a Superior Court judge. That relief takes a motion supported by affidavits showing sufficient reason for the failure to report on time, and it is available only if the operator is not substantially prejudiced by the delay.
- If the operator files its report of the accident with the state within 90 days, that filing serves as notice to the operator for purposes of the reporting requirement.
Those qualifications turn on facts you usually cannot confirm from memory weeks later, such as exactly where the park posted its signage. The reliable course is to put the report in writing right away, deliver it to the park, and keep a dated copy.
Who Can Be Held Responsible for a Ride Injury
These cases often involve several defendants. A claim against any of them is an ordinary negligence claim, but the state ride safety rules are useful because they spell out what careful operation looks like and they assign duties to a range of parties. The statute defines an owner broadly, as a person who owns, leases, controls, or manages the operations of a ride, which can reach a management company whose name never appears on your ticket.
Responsibility commonly falls on one or more of the following:
- The park operator, for maintenance failures, thin staffing, or missing or inadequate warnings.
- The ride operator, meaning the person actually running the ride, along with that person’s employer. The safety rules must require a ride operator to be at least 16 years old, to run no more than one ride at a time, and to be in attendance the entire time the ride is operating.
- The manufacturer of defective ride equipment. A manufacturer notified by an owner or operator of an incident involving a critical component must promptly evaluate that information and, if the evaluation calls for it, issue a safety bulletin to the state and to known owners and operators.
- A maintenance, testing, or inspection contractor whose work failed to catch a developing defect.
Sorting out which parties belong in the case matters early, because each one carries separate insurance coverage and separate records.
The Records That Usually Decide These Cases
Ride claims often turn on paperwork rather than on eyewitness memory. A carnival-amusement ride may not be operated without a state permit, and rides must be inspected before they open to the public and at least once a year after that. A few narrow categories sit outside these rules, including single-passenger coin-operated rides. Owners and ride operators must keep current maintenance and inspection records covering the date and nature of each inspection, any violations, the steps taken to correct them, and every breakdown or repair of a mechanical part.
The state stays involved after a serious injury. Owners and operators must immediately report accidents, injuries, and fatalities incurred during the operation of a ride to the agency that permits and inspects rides statewide. That duty does not extend to incidents the rules classify as minor. The department then investigates every ride incident in which someone suffers death or serious injury, with authority to subpoena testimony and documents. Establishing what those maintenance records and investigations show is usually a central task in building the case.
Injuries That Never Involve a Ride
Many amusement park claims have nothing to do with a ride. Falls on wet walkways, injuries in queue lines, and parking lot collisions are proven with the same negligence elements as any other premises liability claim.
Do not assume the 90-day report requirement passes you by. The statute defines a rider as a person attending an amusement park or using an amusement ride, and it includes any invitee whether or not that person pays consideration. The reporting requirement is written as a precondition to any suit in connection with an injury against an amusement park operator. Read together, that language is broad enough to cover a visitor who never set foot on a ride. No published New Jersey decision has squarely decided the point, which is exactly why the safe course is to file the written report no matter how you were hurt on the property.
The reporting requirement also reaches further than most people expect. For its purposes, the statute defines an amusement ride to include any water-based recreational amusement, naming water slides, wave pools, and water parks.
Expect the Park to Argue That You Caused It
Parks defend these claims by pointing back at the rider, and the statute gives them material. Anyone who rides must obey the written warnings and directions posted at the ride and must refrain from behaving recklessly in a way that may cause or contribute to injury, and a rider who violates that duty commits a disorderly persons offense. Riders also may not board a ride while knowingly under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Being partly at fault does not end a New Jersey claim. Under the state comparative negligence statute, you may still recover as long as your negligence is not greater than the negligence of the parties you are suing, although the damages are reduced by the percentage of fault assigned to you.
Talk With a New Jersey Injury Lawyer Before the 90 Days Run
If you or your child was hurt at a New Jersey amusement park, the most valuable thing you can do is document what happened and get the written report into the park’s hands. Our Freehold personal injury attorneys handle premises liability claims throughout Monmouth County and the surrounding communities, including Jackson. Contact us for a free consultation to get started. There are no upfront fees, and we only get paid when we recover compensation for you.