A Queens mother has filed a negligence lawsuit against American Dream mall, claiming her young son fractured his skull and suffered a brain bleed after falling onto an unprotected concrete staircase inside the mall's now-closed Bubble Planet attraction. It is the second lawsuit in roughly a year to allege a child suffered a fractured skull at the same East Rutherford, New Jersey exhibit.
Tamara Krstic says her son was injured in January inside the Bubble Ocean room of Bubble Planet, an inflatable-balloon exhibit at the sprawling mall, according to the lawsuit reported by NJ.com. The suit, filed in Superior Court in Bergen County, alleges her son fell while playing among large inflatable balloons and struck a concrete staircase that had no padding or protective covering. The boy's age was not disclosed in the lawsuit.
Krstic's complaint describes the Bubble Ocean room as unusually dark, and alleges the inflatable balloons themselves were unstable or defectively designed. She says that after her son was hurt, she had to search for an employee because none were present in the room, and that a staff member later told her the facility had no ice, first aid supplies, or medical equipment on hand. Her son was taken by ambulance to an area hospital, the lawsuit states.
Diagnosis and Legal Claims
According to the lawsuit, Krstic's son was diagnosed with a skull fracture and a brain bleed. The complaint, filed in Bergen County Superior Court, accuses Bubble Planet of multiple counts of negligence, design defect, and negligent hiring, training and supervision, Daily Mail reports. The suit also alleges that Bubble Planet employees were poorly trained, and it describes the bubble room as defective, dangerous, hazardous, and unsafe.
American Dream declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying it could not speak to pending legal matters, per the same Daily Mail report. The mall also confirmed that Bubble Planet is no longer operating at the property — the space is expected to soon house the Minecraft Experience. Bubble Planet had opened at American Dream in 2024, according to NorthJersey.com.
A Second Family, A Similar Injury
Krstic's case is not the first time Bubble Planet has faced claims of this kind. A Long Island couple previously sued American Dream after their daughter suffered a fractured skull and brain bleeding in a Bubble Planet ball pit, an incident that reportedly occurred in April 2025. That four-count lawsuit, filed on behalf of Eliana Lang of West Hempstead, New York, alleges she was injured after striking an unpadded concrete floor beneath the ball pit, with no protective mat in place.
The Lang complaint names Bubble Planet operators Exhibition Hub and Fever Labs as defendants, along with Triple Five, the Canadian developer that owns American Dream, per the NorthJersey.com report. It further alleges the ball-pit room lacked warning signs and had no employees on hand to supervise patrons or alert them to the hard flooring beneath the pit — a complaint echoing Krstic's own account of an unstaffed, unmarked hazard.
Pattern of Incidents at the Mega-Mall
The two bubble-exhibit lawsuits add to a run of injury claims tied to American Dream's indoor attractions. In February 2023, a decorative helicopter fell from the ceiling at the mall's indoor water park and injured four guests, an incident that court records show ultimately cost the mall more than $20 million, according to NorthJersey.com. Separately, the father of a child allegedly injured on a waterslide at the mall's DreamWorks Water Park filed a lawsuit against the park's operators and the slide's manufacturer, as previously reported by NJ.com.
For now, Bubble Planet sits closed, its balloon-filled rooms set to give way to a Minecraft-themed attraction, while two families pursue separate legal claims over injuries they say never should have happened inside it.
