Ask a room of Minnesota homeowners why they worry about the trampoline, and somebody will say “attractive nuisance”. It’s one of the few legal phrases everybody knows.
Minnesota kept the phrase and threw out the idea behind it. The Minnesota Supreme Court discarded the doctrine behind the phrase in May 1935, and it wasn’t polite about it. The idea that the doctrine turned on some kind of invitation to children, the court wrote, “should be discarded”, and “[i]t is but a hindrance to correct thinking to consider it at all.” Gimmestad v. Rose Bros. Co., 194 Minn. 531, 536, 261 N.W. 194 (1935). Sixty-four years later the court described what it had done in one sentence: “we rejected the attractive nuisance doctrine which focused on whether the dangerous condition on the land was so alluring that its presence constituted an invitation for children to trespass and intermeddle with it.” Croaker v. Mackenhausen, 592 N.W.2d 857, 860 n.2 (Minn. 1999).
What replaced it is a five-part test from the Restatement of Torts, and it’s broader than the slogan. It doesn’t care whether the trampoline lured the kid in. It cares whether you knew kids were coming.
The case that killed the slogan was a lumber pile in north Minneapolis
A building-wrecking company sorted and stored salvaged lumber, brick, machinery, and old truck bodies on a city block in north Minneapolis. The piles were, in the court’s words, “of decidedly uncertain stability.” Neighborhood kids played there; Sundays were the “days of real sport”. A five-year-old climbed a pile of loose lumber with three friends, it slid, and he was badly hurt. Gimmestad, 194 Minn. at 532–33.
Here’s the detail that should keep a homeowner up at night. The company knew. Its own witnesses testified that they frequently chased children off the property, and it hired a neighborhood watchman to keep kids away. Id. at 533. Every effort to keep the kids out was evidence the company knew they were coming in.
The court quoted the old line about children “of an age when they follow a bait as mechanically as a fish,” id. at 534, and then went past it. The phrase “attractive nuisance”, it said, “indicates no special departure or exception from the ordinary run of negligence cases.” Id. at 536. It adopted the Restatement’s rule for trespassing children and closed with this: “They are trespassers, but, because of their tender years” and their lack of perception and responsibility, “liability results notwithstanding the trespass.” Id. at 537.
One correction to the way this gets told. Gimmestad didn’t adopt “section 339”. The Restatement was still in draft, and the court quoted a four-part rule from Tentative Draft No. 4, § 209. Id. at 536–37. By 1955 the court was quoting the same four parts as Restatement of Torts § 339. Davies v. Land O’ Lakes Racing Ass’n, 244 Minn. 248, 252–53, 69 N.W.2d 642 (1955). The Second Restatement, published in 1965, added a fifth. That five-part version is the one Minnesota courts quote today.
The five things a trespassing child has to prove
The Minnesota Supreme Court’s most complete modern statement is Croaker. It starts from the general rule, that “a possessor of land owes no duty to trespassers”, and then describes “a narrow exception” for children. Croaker, 592 N.W.2d at 860. The exception is Restatement (Second) of Torts § 339:
A possessor of land is subject to liability for physical harm to children trespassing thereon caused by an artificial condition upon the land if
(a) the place where the condition exists is one upon which the possessor knows or has reason to know that children are likely to trespass, and
(b) the condition is one of which the possessor knows or has reason to know and which he realizes or should realize will involve an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm to such children, and
(c) the children because of their youth do not discover the condition or realize the risk involved in intermeddling with it or in coming within the area made dangerous by it, and
(d) the utility to the possessor of maintaining the condition and the burden of eliminating the danger are slight as compared with the risk to children involved, and
(e) the possessor fails to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger or otherwise to protect the children.
— Croaker, 592 N.W.2d at 860 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 339)
Then the line defense lawyers love: “Because all five elements must be proven to establish liability, the failure to meet the requirements of any one element would be fatal to respondent’s claim.” Id.
That’s still the rule. In January 2026, the supreme court set out the same five elements in full while discussing an old child-trespasser case. Glay v. R.C. of St. Cloud, Inc., No. A23-1464, slip op. at 26 n.18 (Minn. Jan. 28, 2026).
Run a backyard trampoline through it. It’s an artificial condition; nobody’s arguing it grew there. Whether the neighborhood kids use it when you’re at work is element (a). Whether it carries “an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm” is element (b). Whether a seven-year-old appreciates what a double bounce off the frame does to a neck, compared with a twelve-year-old doing backflips, is element (c). And element (d) weighs the trampoline’s value to you, and what it would cost to net it, lock it, or take it down, against the risk to the kids. That’s how I read the test against a trampoline. The one Minnesota appellate decision on a backyard trampoline I found never got to the test. A 12-year-old visiting her aunt with her mother went out to the aunt’s trampoline with her mother’s permission while both adults stayed inside, fell off during a game she’d invented with a hockey puck, and hurt her arm. The Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the aunt. The mother was there and said she was in charge of her daughter that day, so the aunt owed no duty to supervise. The attractive-nuisance argument was “inapposite because this case involves the duty of a landowner to an entrant, not a trespasser.” A footnote collected cases from other states for the point that a trampoline isn’t an attractive nuisance. And the girl had primarily assumed the risk: her family owned a nearly identical trampoline, she’d read the warnings, and she admitted that at 12 she understood the dangers. Warman v. Gaber, No. C3-01-1755 (Minn. Ct. App. Mar. 26, 2002) (unpublished). Unpublished matters here. The opinion says it “may not be cited except as provided by” Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2000), and that version of the statute said unpublished opinions “are not precedential.” Its parent-in-the-house reasoning also predates Foss and Senogles, below, and Senogles refused to adopt a rule that a landowner owes no duty to a child who comes onto the land with a parent. Senogles v. Carlson, 902 N.W.2d 38, 48 (Minn. 2017).
“Kids were around” isn’t enough. They have to be at the trampoline.
Croaker is the defense side’s best case, and every homeowner should understand it.
Five boys, ages 3 to 9, wandered from a park past a resort’s locked storage shed on Cass Lake. One crawled under the shed door, took a nearly full gas can out of a stored boat, and brought it back to an unlocked, disabled van parked nearby, where the boys had been lighting small fires. The gas ignited. A seven-year-old was badly burned, and a three-year-old died. Croaker, 592 N.W.2d at 858–59. A jury put 60% of the fault on the resort owners and awarded $151,059. Id. at 858.
The supreme court took the verdict away. Kids walked the road past the shed all the time, and kids were welcome at the resort’s lodge. But nobody had ever seen a child in the shed or the van, and the boys all testified they’d never been there before. Id. at 862. The court held that the landowner “must have reason to anticipate the presence of the child at the place of danger”, not just nearby, and that children being “in the vicinity” doesn’t satisfy element (a). Id. (quoting William L. Prosser, Trespassing Children, 47 Calif. L. Rev. 427, 448 (1959)). It overruled a Court of Appeals decision that had let the vicinity inference go to a jury. Id. at 862 n.4.
It also repeated, with approval, Prosser’s line on the outer limit: a possessor “is not required to anticipate and guard against the more unusual forms of infant deviltry which no reasonable man would foresee.” Id. at 861 (quoting Slinker v. Wallner, 258 Minn. 243, 251, 103 N.W.2d 377 (1960), which quoted Prosser, 47 Calif. L. Rev. at 466).
So the question for your trampoline isn’t whether there are kids on your street. It’s whether you know, or have reason to know, that they’re on the trampoline. The muddy footprints on the mat. The neighbor who mentioned it. The note you taped to the gate. The Gimmestad watchman. The more you’ve done to keep them off, the harder it is to say you didn’t know they were trying. And the court doesn’t bend on this element: “we strictly construe the requirement that the possessor of land know or have reason to know that children are likely to trespass.” Id. at 860.
Water is its own warning. Usually.
The lead every homeowner hears is that pools and ponds are classic attractive nuisances. Minnesota’s own case law starts somewhere else.
In Davies v. Land O’ Lakes Racing Ass’n, a boy between five and six drowned on the Freeborn County fairgrounds in a drainage pit dug for a new race track: ten feet square, six feet deep, sides straight down, unguarded. A heavy rain the night before had covered the track and the edges of the pit with standing water. 244 Minn. 248, 250–52, 69 N.W.2d 642 (1955). The court started with the general rule that ordinary water doesn’t usually count: § 339 “makes it clear that a possessor of land will not ordinarily be held liable for injuries occurring in ordinary, natural, or artificial bodies of water that are free from traps or concealments.” Id. at 255. Even a child, the court said, “to some extent appreciates the risks that are connected with it.” Id.
This pit was different. A six-foot hole hidden under a sheet of rainwater is a trap, and the jury could find it carried more risk than an ordinary water hazard. The verdict for the family stood. Id. at 256, 259. “Every case of this nature must necessarily stand or fall upon its own particular facts.” Id. at 255.
A backyard pool is an artificial condition, and whether it’s an “ordinary” body of water or a trap is the Davies question. A cover that sags and holds rainwater, a pool that’s drained to three feet of murk, a dark night: those are the facts that move a pool from one side of that line to the other. I didn’t find a Minnesota appellate decision applying § 339 to a residential pool.
Invite the kid over and the rules get better for him
The child who climbs your fence gets the five-part test. The child you invite over for a birthday party gets more. Almost nobody guesses that.
The case that rewrote Minnesota premises law was about a child guest. An 11-year-old girl was invited to spend the night at a lake cabin in St. Louis County with the owner’s 13-year-old daughter. A rusted gas refrigerator filled the cabin with carbon monoxide overnight, and everyone inside died. Peterson v. Balach, 294 Minn. 161, 162–63, 199 N.W.2d 639 (1972). Under the old rules, a social guest was a “licensee”, the owner owed her no duty to inspect or make the cabin safe, and the trial court directed a verdict for the owner. Id. at 163. The supreme court abolished the licensee and invitee categories and replaced them with a duty “to use reasonable care for the safety of all such persons invited upon the premises”. Id. at 174. It expressly declined “to rule on the question of a landowner’s duty toward trespassers.” Id. at 164. I walked through Peterson and the known-or-obvious rule that came after it at /news/minnesota-premises-liability-snow-and-ice/.
Where does that leave the trespassing-child test for a child guest? As a floor. “Cases decided after Peterson clarified that the child trespasser standard is the minimum standard of care and that child licensees and invitees have greater protection than a trespasser.” Foss v. Kincade, 766 N.W.2d 317, 321 (Minn. 2009).
The defense to an invited guest’s claim is usually that the danger was obvious. In 2017, the supreme court said that test has to be run from where the child stands. A four-year-old at a family party on the Mississippi was found face down in the river minutes after the kids were called out of the water to eat. Senogles v. Carlson, 902 N.W.2d 38, 40–41 (Minn. 2017). The court of appeals called the river an obvious danger. The supreme court reversed. The notion that young children have a natural fear of water was “a gross generalization that ignores a number of circumstances, including the age of the child, the child’s prior swimming experience, and the type and condition of the water”, id. at 45, and Minnesota precedent “has rejected blanket rules”, id. at 46. The vote was 4–3, and the court was careful about what it decided: “We decide only that Senogles is entitled to a trial.” Id. at 48.
The test is objective, but it’s run with the child’s age and experience in it. Id. at 44. So the neighbor kid you invite over to use the trampoline is owed reasonable care, and whether the danger was obvious to him is measured by a reasonable child his age with his experience. That’s a better deal than the trespasser gets.
It isn’t unlimited. Foss itself went for the homeowner. An unsecured, empty bookcase fell on a three-year-old guest, and the court held the injury wasn’t foreseeable: “we would not expect homeowners to bolt down their table lamps before inviting a three-year-old into their house”. 766 N.W.2d at 323. It also said where the line moves. If the homeowners had known the boy tended to climb bookcases, they “may have had a duty to secure the bookcase or at least to warn” his mother. Id. Knowledge again. A trampoline isn’t a table lamp, and nobody buys one without knowing kids will jump on it.
The other kid on the mat isn’t your way out
Most trampoline injuries involve two kids, and a homeowner’s first instinct is to blame the other one. Minnesota has a case on that, too.
A four-year-old was playing on an undeveloped lot when a twelve-year-old threw a chunk of caustic lime-cement in his direction and it hit him in the eye. The jury found the twelve-year-old wasn’t negligent and found the lot’s owner negligent, but not a cause of the injury, apparently because the trial court had instructed on superseding cause. Crohn v. Dupre, 291 Minn. 290, 291, 190 N.W.2d 678 (1971). The supreme court sent it back for a new trial on the owner’s liability. The other child’s act “could not be a superseding cause”, because it was “the very event the likelihood of which makes the [landowner] actor’s conduct negligent and so subjects the actor to liability”. Id. at 292 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 449 cmt. b). The court relied on that reasoning again in Glay in January 2026. Glay, slip op. at 26–27.
Kids bouncing kids is the risk of a trampoline. If that’s the risk that made it dangerous, it’s hard to call it the surprise that excuses you.
A child’s own fault counts, measured as a child
Minnesota doesn’t give young children a free pass on their own carelessness. In Toetschinger v. Ihnot, a boy of five years and eight months was hit by a car. The supreme court considered adopting the rule some states use, that a child under seven can’t be at fault at all, and declined. 312 Minn. 59, 64–65, 250 N.W.2d 204 (1977). The jury instead measures “the degree of care expected of a child” as “that commensurate with the age, mental capacity, and understanding of children of similar age acting under similar circumstances.” Id. at 69.
Then Minnesota’s comparative-fault statute does the math. The child’s fault doesn’t bar recovery “if the contributory fault was not greater than the fault of the person against whom recovery is sought,” but damages are “diminished in proportion” to it. Minn. Stat. § 604.01, subd. 1. I explained how that reduction interacts with insurance offsets at /news/minnesota-comparative-fault-collateral-source/. Parents can get a share, too. In Croaker, the jury put 40% of the fault on the boy’s father for failing to supervise. 592 N.W.2d at 859. But a parent standing nearby doesn’t erase the host’s duty to a child guest. Whether a child’s injury is also linked to a parent’s failure to supervise “is a question of comparative negligence, not a ground on which to extinguish the landowner’s duty to maintain a safe premises for social guests.” Foss, 766 N.W.2d at 322.
The recreational-use statute won’t bail out a backyard
Homeowners sometimes hear that Minnesota immunizes landowners who let people use their land for recreation. It does, on terms. The immunity runs to “an owner who gives written or oral permission for the use of the land for recreational purposes without charge”. Minn. Stat. § 604A.22. A trespassing kid didn’t get permission. And the whole scheme carves back out liability “for conduct which, at law, entitles a trespasser to maintain an action and obtain relief”. § 604A.25(1). As I read the statute, that’s a § 339 claim. I went through the statute’s other conditions at /news/minnesota-recreational-land-use-liability/.
The dog is a different animal
Minnesota’s dog-bite statute is the opposite design. It’s strict liability: if the dog attacks or injures someone without provocation, the owner is liable “to the full amount of the injury sustained” with no negligence required. But only for a person “acting peaceably in any place where the person may lawfully be”. Minn. Stat. § 347.22. A trespassing child falls outside that sentence, and whatever claim he has against the dog’s owner is a common-law one. The trampoline and the dog in the same backyard work almost in reverse: § 339 was built for the child who wasn’t supposed to be there, and § 347.22 was built for the person who was. More on the dog statute at /news/minnesota-dog-bite-statute/.
Before the kids next door find it
If you own the trampoline, think about what you know. Kids on the mat when you’re not home, a neighbor’s text, a gap in the fence you’ve been meaning to fix. Croaker and Foss both turned on what the owner knew. Read your homeowner’s policy for anything it says about trampolines, before you need it.
If your child was hurt on someone else’s property, the first question isn’t whether the thing was attractive. It’s whether your child was invited, and if not, whether the owner knew kids were getting to that exact spot. If a child died, the claim belongs to a court-appointed trustee, and I wrote about how that works at /news/minnesota-wrongful-death-trustee/.
The watchman you hire to chase the kids off is the best evidence that you knew they were coming.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC represents injured people in Minnesota premises-liability cases, dog attacks, and wrongful-death claims brought by a court-appointed trustee. If your child was hurt on someone else’s property, or you’re a property owner trying to understand what the law expects of you, read about our personal injury practice and send us a message.
Sources: Gimmestad v. Rose Bros. Co., 194 Minn. 531, 261 N.W. 194 (1935) (facts and the company’s knowledge at 532–33; “follow a bait” at 534; attractive nuisance “no special departure” from ordinary negligence and the invitation theory discarded at 536; Restatement of Torts (Tent. Draft No. 4) § 209 four-part rule at 536–37; “liability results notwithstanding the trespass” at 537); Croaker ex rel. Croaker v. Mackenhausen, 592 N.W.2d 857 (Minn. 1999) (facts and verdict at 858–59; no duty to trespassers, the narrow exception, Restatement (Second) of Torts § 339, all five elements required, and strict construction of the knowledge requirement, at 860; attractive nuisance doctrine rejected, at 860 n.2; Prosser “infant deviltry”, quoting Slinker v. Wallner, 258 Minn. 243, 103 N.W.2d 377 (1960), at 861; place of danger, not the vicinity, at 862; Kukowski overruled to that extent, at 862 n.4); Glay v. R.C. of St. Cloud, Inc., No. A23-1464, slip op. at 26–27 & n.18 (Minn. Jan. 28, 2026) (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 339 set out; Crohn’s superseding-cause reasoning); Davies v. Land O’ Lakes Racing Ass’n, 244 Minn. 248, 69 N.W.2d 642 (1955) (facts at 250–52; four-part Restatement of Torts § 339 as instructed, at 252–53; ordinary bodies of water free from traps or concealments, and each case on its own facts, at 255; this pit an unreasonable risk at 256; affirmed at 259); Peterson v. Balach, 294 Minn. 161, 199 N.W.2d 639 (1972) (facts at 162–63; directed verdict under the licensee rule at 163; trespasser question reserved at 164; reasonable care to all persons invited, at 174); Senogles v. Carlson, 902 N.W.2d 38 (Minn. 2017) (facts at 40–41; objective test informed by the child’s age and experience, at 44; “gross generalization” at 45; blanket rules rejected at 46; no-duty rule for a child accompanied by a parent declined, and entitled to a trial, at 48); Foss v. Kincade, 766 N.W.2d 317 (Minn. 2009) (child-trespasser standard the minimum; child licensees and invitees have greater protection, at 321; parent’s failure to supervise a comparative-negligence question, at 322; bookcase not foreseeable, table lamps, and actual knowledge, at 323); Warman v. Gaber, No. C3-01-1755 (Minn. Ct. App. Mar. 26, 2002) (unpublished) (aunt’s backyard trampoline; mother present and in charge, so no duty to supervise; attractive nuisance inapposite to an entrant; out-of-state trampoline cases collected in n.1; primary assumption of risk by a 12-year-old); Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3(c) (2000) (unpublished court of appeals opinions not precedential); Crohn v. Dupre, 291 Minn. 290, 190 N.W.2d 678 (1971) (facts at 291; other child’s act could not be a superseding cause at 292); Toetschinger v. Ihnot, 312 Minn. 59, 250 N.W.2d 204 (1977) (under-seven rule declined at 64–65; standard of care for children at 69); Minn. Stat. § 604.01, subd. 1 (comparative fault); Minn. Stat. § 604A.22 (recreational-use duty limits for owners who give permission without charge); Minn. Stat. § 604A.25(1) (liability to trespassers not limited); Minn. Stat. § 347.22 (dog owner’s liability to a person acting peaceably where the person may lawfully be). This article is general information about Minnesota law, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied.