Bounce House in Los Angeles

A Bounce House Takes Flight and Brings a Child Along for the Ride

profile photo
By Yosi Yahoudai
Founder and Managing Partner

Southern California — It’s being reported that a bounce house in Southern California took flight with child inside of it over Mother’s Day weekend. According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, a bounce house landed on U.S. Route 395 in Adelanto, CA just after 3 P.M. the Saturday before Mother’s Day.

The family of the victim rented a bounce house to entertain the children during their Mother’s Day celebrations. Everything was going well until “a big gust of wind that looked like a tornado” came rolling through the yard. The gust lifted the bounce house into the air and carried it a quarter-mile before dropping it onto the nearest highway, Route 395.

According to reports from the Washington Post, after the bounce house was lifted into the air, the family began to chase the it. They were unsuccessful in pulling the house down and it tumbled onto the highway. At this point, the child fell out of the bounce house and was struck by a car. Thankfully, the 9-year old boy inside the bounce house only suffered minor injuries. The driver of the vehicle did not suffer any physical injuries and was said to be “shook up” after the incident.

What’s Yosi’s Take?

Distributors and sellers of bounce houses need to be careful. I could easily see a jury finding liability against them in cases where young children suffer injuries while riding in them. There is a long history of children suffering serious injuries and even death while riding bounce houses. The distributors and sellers are clearly aware that they are selling a product that is potentially very dangerous.

It seems like only professionals should be installing these bounce houses. By allowing novices such as inexperienced parents to install the bounce houses, the sellers are greatly increasing the chance that an accident can happen. It appears that faulty installation and poor anchoring are two of the main reasons that these accidents are happening. Knowing that, if I was advising the sellers/distributors of these bounce houses, I would not allow for non-employees to install and anchor the bounce houses. By not doing so, the sellers/distributors are equipping parents with very dangerous, even deadly products that have a high chance of causing serious injuries to helpless children.

If I was advising the sellers/distributors of the bounce houses in cases where injuries occurred to its participants, I would absolutely advise them to settle these cases out of court and not take them to trial. The parents of the injured children would have very strong cases against the bounce house sellers and most, if not all juries would greatly sympathize with the families of these helpless children that did nothing wrong, but wanted a chance to have fun.

author photo
About the Author
Yosi Yahoudai is a founder and the managing partner of J&Y. His practice is comprised primarily of cases involving automobile and motorcycle accidents, but he also represents people in premises liability lawsuits, including suits alleging dangerous conditions of public property, third-party criminal conduct, and intentional torts. He also has expertise in cases involving product defects, dog bites, elder abuse, and sexual assault. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of California and is admitted to practice in all California State Courts, and the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. If you have any questions about this article, you can contact Yosi by clicking here.