Injury while using exercise equipment is not the maker’s fault, says appeals court

If you’re working out in an apartment building, and you get hurt when a piece of the exercise equipment breaks, can you sue the equipment maker for negligence? 

A La Crosse County man tried suing and lost, and he has also lost an appeal of the original case. 

In a case originally filed in 2016, the man was using a weightlifting bench, and was injured when the inclined back of the bench fell down. 

He blamed the company that made the bench for noticing a faulty pin on the bench during an inspection years earlier, but the company never came back to fix it. 

The trial court and appeals judges ruled that since the apartment managers inspected the bench several times a year, and apparently missed the pin problem, the equipment maker can’t be held liable for the accident.   

The managers of the apartment building were also sued for damages in the case, but the ruling specifically applies to the company that built the exercise bench.