Gyms and fitness centers exist to improve our health, not endanger it. Yet, every year, hundreds of thousands of people are seriously injured by malfunctioning equipment. In 2021 over 400,000 Americans were hurt by exercise devices, and a disturbing number of these incidents were fatal. If your commitment to fitness has resulted in a serious injury, you may have a right to seek compensation.

Understand that faulty or poorly maintained gym equipment can cause a wide variety of serious accidents. These aren’t just minor slips and bumps – they are often catastrophic failures that lead to long-term injuries. Common defects include:

• Treadmills that suddenly accelerate or stop without warning, causing users to be thrown off.
• Exercise bikes improperly assembled or designed, leading to them breaking or collapsing while in use.
• Weight machines with fraying belts, broken pulleys, or improperly set “dead-stop” safety mechanisms that allow weights to fall.
• Elliptical machines and other devices with faulty wiring that can result in electrical shock.

When a piece of equipment fails in one of these ways, the results can be devastating and may lead to fractures, head injuries, soft tissue damage and in extreme cases they may even be fatal. Who Is Responsible for Your Injuries? When you’re hurt by a defective or poorly maintained device, your injury claim may target one or both of the responsible parties:

• The Equipment Company: A product liability lawsuit can be brought against the manufacturer, distributor, or retailer of the equipment. This claim focuses on the product itself being defective. A defect can be in the design (it’s not as safe as a consumer would expect), the manufacture (the finished product varied from the intended design), or the marketing (a failure to adequately warn users of known risks). In these cases, the company can often be held strictly liable, meaning you don’t have to prove their negligence, only that the defect caused your injury.
• The Gym or Fitness Center: You may also be able to bring a negligence lawsuit against the facility. Gyms have a duty of care to their members. They can breach this duty by failing to properly install, maintain, or inspect the equipment, or by not providing adequate warnings about known, non-obvious hazards.

What if you signed a waiver? Many gyms today require members to sign a liability waiver, which is intended to protect them from negligence claims. However, waivers are not a guaranteed shield. They may be legally unenforceable, or your case may fall outside the scope of the waiver. You may still be able to sue if your injuries were caused by the gym’s gross negligence, recklessness, intentional misconduct, or illegal acts. If you’ve been injured, your priority should be on healing. Take the critical first steps: get immediate medical attention, photograph the faulty equipment, and do not admit fault.

We represent people injured as a result of the careless and reckless acts of others. At the end of the day your case can only be settled one time and you need to know all of the facts beforehand. Insurance companies have paid our clients hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation because we uncover the facts. When insurance companies fail to offer full compensation, we are not intimidated at the prospect of going to trial. We help with serious injuries that require serious representation. We are the Law Offices of Guenard & Bozarth, LLP. Our attorneys have more than 60 years of experience specializing in only representing injured people. Call GB Legal 24/7/365 at 916-714-7672 or visit www.gblegal.com

Disclaimer: This blog post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.