Sacramento, CA, USA — The California State Supreme Court on Dec. 31, 2012 reversed a lower court’s decision regarding a wrist injury sustained in 2005 on bumper cars at the Calfornia’s Great America theme park, a Cedar Fair property located in Santa Clara, CA, USA. Associate Justice Kathryn Werdegar, writing the majority opinion, stated:
Riders on Rue le Dodge, in other words, are not passively carried or transported from one place to another. They actively engage in a game, trying to bump others or avoid being bumped themselves. The rationale for holding the operator of a roller coaster to the duties of a common carrier for reward—that riders, having delivered themselves into the control of the operator, are owed the highest degree of care for their safety—simply does not apply to bumper car riders’ safety from the risks inherent in bumping.