If one were to lay out the network of veins and arteries in an adult human body end-to-end, they would stretch between 60,000 to 100,000 miles, or roughly 20% of the distance from Earth to the Moon. If one were to visualize such a distance, they could begin to understand a fraction of just how severely detached the Walt Disney Company is from reality.
After Kanokporn Tangsuan, a New York University doctor, passed away from a fatal allergic reaction caused by food at Disney Springs’ Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant in Florida last October, her widowed husband Jeffrey Piccolo filed a $50,000 lawsuit against the company, citing wrongful death, negligence, emotional damages, loss of income, and funeral expenses.
But per The New York Post, Disney has filed to dismiss the lawsuit. Their grounds? Piccolo signed up for a free trial of Disney Plus back in 2019, and by agreeing to the streaming service’s terms and conditions, the Mouse House argues that Piccolo is therefore obliged to resolve this dispute by “individual binding arbitration.”
In other words, Disney believes that since Piccolo signed up for a free trial of Disney Plus years ago, he waived his right to any and all trials he could conceivably seek out against Disney or any of its subsidiaries, and is instead beholden to the final decision of a neutral party (known as an arbitrator), who would make said decision after simply hearing the case. Neither Piccolo nor Disney would have any right to appeal the arbitrator’s decision.
Disney also notes that Piccolo agreed to similar bindings when he used the “My Disney Experience” app to buy his and Tangsuan’s Epcot tickets in September last year, while Piccolo’s lawsuit stresses that his late wife told the restaurant’s staff time and time again about her nut and dairy allergies when she placed her order. She died in a hospital shortly after leaving the restaurant, despite immediately using an epi-pen when her symptoms began.
Piccolo’s lawyers have, of course, slammed Disney’s defense, calling it “outrageously unreasonable and unfair as to shock the judicial conscience,” and it’s not hard to see why. The nuances — apparent and/or otherwise —of both the restaurant’s and Disney’s responsibility in the incident is one thing, but for Disney to suggest that a 2019 Disney Plus free trial sign-up should legally guard them from every conceivable lawsuit against their expansive, multi-disciplinary brand, is an echelon of corporate inhumanity that only rears its head to the public very occasionally.
It’s not yet clear if Piccolo will have the opportunity to take Disney to court.
Published: Aug 14, 2024 11:40 am