$17.$ Did SSWP commit a strict liability tort?

Contract and Tort Fact Pattern

Jerry, wanting to enjoy his birthday, went to Solar System Water Park $($SSWP$)$ with friends. Solar System has a water park and a land park and advertises itself as $$the most extreme ride experience in the Solar System.$$ They have the most dangerous and adrenaline$-$pumping rides on earth. They do everything from bungy jumping to high$-$speed gravity defying rollercoasters. Jerry and his friends were excited to ride the Hide Uranus Water Park slide, which had the $$biggest slide drop in the Solar System.$$ The slide was built by SSWP and had opened $2$ years earlier. While waiting in line to go down the ride, Jerry and his friends saw a sign that said, $$Go down the slide feet first.$$ Jerry and his friends dared each other to go down headfirst and Jerry decide that was what he was going to do$.$ He had no problems doing this as there was not a SSWP attendant at the top of the ride. When Jerry went down the slide, his head slammed into a shallow wading pool at the bottom of the slide.

The ambulance rushed Jerry to the hospital. In the ambulance, the paramedics had Jerry sign a contract before he could receive treatment. Jerry was too dizzy to read the contract, so the paramedics summarized it by telling Jerry that signing it meant he agreed to receive treatment and to pay for the treatment, whether through insurance or out$-$of$-$pocket. Jerry definitely wanted to receive treatment, but also had the presence of mind to ask, $$Is there anything else important in that thing I need to know about?$$ The paramedic said, $$Nope$.$ Jerry signed the contract and then passed out. The contract said Jerry must pay for all his medical bills, whether through insurance or personally. It also said if he experienced malpractice at the hospital, Jerry was waiving his right to file a lawsuit. His sole remedy would be to go to binding arbitration and that the arbitrator would be hired by the hospital.

When Jerry awoke at the hospital, the doctor told him the Hide Uranus Water Park slide had left him paralyzed from the waist down for life. During discovery, Jerry$$s attorney discovered SSWP had spreadsheets that showed that in the $2$ years since it opened, $115$ visitors had been injured on the Hide Uranus Water Park slide. Some visitors had experienced minor injuries and others had incurred major injuries. SSWP didn$$t do anything about it because they thought $115$ was a small amount of injuries compared to the thousands of visitors who rode it without injury. They also discovered that when the park$$s safety tester tested the ride before the grand opening, the tester was injured in a manner similar to Jerry, but his injuries were minor and not severe. This tester wrote in the testing notes $$this ride$$s safety is improving, but it$$s not where we want it to be$.$ Solar System closed the slide after Jerry$$s injury and extended the slide lanes to prevent anyone else from being injured in the same way. A SSWP study of the slide a few months before the injury showed this would fix the problem.

A nurse contacted Jerry and his attorney and told them that the ER surgeon who helped Jerry after the accident was checking his cellphone during the surgery and accidentally left a small sponge in Jerry$$s head. Jerry was so mad when he found this out, that he didn$$t pay his medical bill. Jerry and his attorney sued the hospital for the surgeon malpractice. The hospital countersued for breach of contract, saying Jerry was not allowed to bring a malpractice lawsuit and could only raise his concerns in binding arbitration. The hospital also claimed Jerry breached his contract by not paying his bill.