Playground Negligence

Brien Roche

Playground negligence can lead to serious injury. Many Virginia playgrounds, to this day, lack adequate protective surfaces, have equipment with head entrapment hazards or have equipment with protruding parts that can cause clothing to become entangled. All of those things are potential hazards to a child.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has published a handbook that is an excellent guide as to the standard of care for construction and maintenance of playgrounds. Likewise, the Consumer Federation of America has published a report dealing with the same subject matter and establishing similar standards. Most localities and school districts are aware of these standards and comply with them. Where non-compliance is most often found is on older playgrounds and privately maintained playgrounds. The age or ownership of the playground does not excuse or insulate the owner from liability.

In any playground negligence case, a playground safety expert may have to be retained who is familiar with these standards.

Establishing Liability in Playground Negligence Cases

The liability of the property owner or overseer of the playground may be established on several conceivable theories:

Negligent supervision in particular where small children are the users. This duty to supervise most often applies to the owner where the owner is also the entity that has brought the children to the playground i.e. a school district.
Product liability coming in the form of products that allow clothing to get caught, slides that have inadequate handrails or siding , slides that are likely to catch a child’s rubber soled shoes, climbing walls that are not properly constructed recognizing that smaller children may be using them .
Surfacing materials that are inadequate in that they are either not unitary (such as rubber mats) or are not composed of loose fill such as sand or shredded wood products.