Disney Uses Disney+ Subscription as Defense Against Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Theme Parks

If you want another reminder of what a despicable company Disney has become – beyond what they’re doing to children – they’re happy to oblige. According to the New York Post, Dr. Kanokporn Tangsuan, who works for NYU Langone in Manhattan, visited Disney World with her husband, Jeffrey Piccolo, in October 2023. Dr. Tangsuan was allergic to nuts and dairy, which she “repeatedly stressed” to the wait staff of Raglan Road, an Irish pub and restaurant located in Disney Springs, a shopping mall in Walt Disney World Resort. After eating a meal consisting of “scallops, onion rings, broccoli, and corn fritters” on October 5, she died of anaphylaxis, a which the Mayo Clinic describes as a “severe, life-threatening allergic reaction.”

Piccolo is now suing Disney for $50,000 for the wrongful death of his wife, but Disney is trying to have the case dropped because of a couple of agreements Piccolo signed with them, almost assuredly unknowingly. The first, and the one Disney oddly seems to be emphasizing, is a one-month free trial of Disney+, their streaming app. According to them, the agreement contains a clause saying the subscriber agrees to “arbitrate all disputes with the company” instead of taking them to court. A month before Dr. Tangsuan died, Piccolo ordered tickets to Epcot through the My Disney Experience app, which Disney also claims has “similar language” to which Piccolo agreed. Unsurprisingly, Piccolo’s lawyer thinks this is nonsensical and is contesting it, arguing that losing your ability to sue a company years later over a wrongful death because you subscribed to a streaming service’s free trial is “so outrageously unreasonable and unfair as to shock the judicial conscience.”

Well, yeah. This is insane, and while I understand Disney and their lawyers are going to defend themselves in court, this tactic seems particularly cruel and almost mocking. “Sorry our negligence led to your wife’s death, but, unfortunately, you watched She-Hulk, so it’s not our problem.” They’re going to those lengths over $50,000? I know Disney isn’t exactly in its best financial position ever, but they spend more than that on lunch for a Marvel movie. Normally, I don’t think that’s a valid argument – the facts and principles of the case have to matter – but a person is dead, and assuming Piccolo’s lawyer did any rudimentary investigating, the food Dr. Tangsuan ate at Raglan Road must have been the source of her anaphylaxis. Disney isn’t even arguing that they’re not at fault; they’re saying that even if they are, Piccolo agreed not to sue them for anything when he signed up for the Disney+ free trial and when he bought tickets to Epcot through their app.

I want to believe that this doesn’t stand a chance in court; any reasonable person can see that nobody would expect a Disney+ subscription or theme park tickets to bar them from filing a wrongful death suit. These stipulations are almost certainly supposed to cover problems you have with Disney’s apps. But part of the response from Piccolo’s lawyer makes me wonder if Disney really could win this. In addition to calling the claim “outrageous,” Piccolo’s lawyer points out that Piccolo is filing his case as the personal representative of his wife’s estate, not on his own behalf, which, I guess, would negate the agreements (such as they are). This could be the lawyer simply covering his bases, which is always smart, but the idea that Disney’s ploy could work is troubling. It would effectively be telling companies that they can get around almost anything, even a wrongful death due to negligence, by using deceptive language in a user agreement for any of their products and even free trials of those products. I hope they don’t get away with this.

Let us know what you think of Disney’s defense against negligence in the comments!