The House of Mouse has turned tail. Disney had filed a motion to have a wrongful death lawsuit against them dismissed. Their reasoning was as curious as it was infuriating. The plaintiff, widower Jeffrey Piccolo, sued Disney after his wife, Dr. Kanokporn Tangsuan, died of anaphylaxis as a result of eating contaminated food at a Disney Springs restaurant, despite having asked the wait staff exhaustively to confirm there would be no nuts or dairy in her food. In their recent filing, Disney countered that Piccolo had actually waived all rights to sue them… because he’d signed the terms and conditions for Disney+, in a buried clause that stipulates issues can only be addressed through arbitration. Needless to say, the legal chicanery was met with swift backlash. So now Disney has filed a notice to withdraw the previous motion, meaning Piccolo can proceed with his lawsuit.
Josh D’Amaro, chairperson of Disney’s theme park division, said in a statement emailed earlier to The Associated Press that the entertainment giant will waive its arbitration rights and allow the suit, brought by the husband of a New York doctor who suffered a fatal allergic reaction after eating at a restaurant in Disney Springs, to proceed in court.
“At Disney, we strive to put humanity above all other considerations,” he said in the Monday night statement. “With such unique circumstances as the ones in this case, we believe this situation warrants a sensitive approach to expedite a resolution for the family who have experienced such a painful loss.”
Disney had previously argued that Jeffrey Piccolo could not sue the company because he agreed to settle any lawsuits against the company out of court when he signed up for a one-month trial subscription to Disney+ back in 2019.
Brian Denney, Piccolo’s Florida-based lawyer, said Tuesday that his client will continue to “pursue justice on behalf of his beloved wife” and hopes that their ordeal has helped raise awareness of the challenges people with food allergies face.
He also noted that others seeking to take Disney to court risk facing a similar legal challenge as the arbitration provision remains in many of the company’s terms and conditions.
“The right to a jury trial as set forth in the Seventh Amendment is a bedrock of our judicial system and should be protected and preserved,” Denney wrote in an email. “Attempts by corporations like Disney to avoid jury trials should be looked at with skepticism.”
In a response filed earlier this month, Denney had argued that it was “absurd” to believe that the more than 150 million subscribers to Disney+ have waived all rights to sue the company and its affiliates in perpetuity because of language “buried” in the fine print.
The company, in its bid to have the lawsuit dismissed, argued Piccolo had not agreed just to the arbitration terms in his Disney+ trial, but also again when he signed up for an account on Disney’s website and app in order to purchase the couple’s tickets for their ill-fated theme park visit.
…Disney, in a follow-up statement to The Associated Press last week, said that it was merely defending itself against Piccolo’s attempt to include the company in his lawsuit against Raglan Road, the Irish pub in Disney Springs where the family dined.
Spokespersons for the restaurant didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday. Disney Springs is owned by Disney, which leases some of the spaces in the outdoor dining, shopping and entertainment complex to other companies.
Piccolo’s lawsuit claims the family had decided to eat at Raglan Road in October because it was billed on Disney’s website as having “allergen free food.”
Score one for the little guy! I mean, the Disney legal team will for sure do their worst in court and/or arbitration, or will attempt the smallest settlement they can get away with. But cynical lil’ ole me honestly didn’t think The Mouse would even deign to make this reversal. Something to look out for long term, is what happens to the “you can watch our cartoons, but only if you sign away your right to sue us,” clause. I’d say the only thing that would force a mega company like Disney to take out such a clause would be the Supreme Court, but well, yeah…
It’s nice to see Piccolo and his lawyer using this case as an opportunity to champion people with food allergies. Piccolo is absolutely right that Raglan Road is touted as an allergen-free option among the dining at Disney World. And don’t you just love how Disney tried to throw the restaurant under the bus? “Don’t sue us, it was the restaurant’s fault!” Yes, the restaurant on Disney’s land, that Disney leases to the restaurant. I bet the deciding factor for who’s at fault will come down to minutia language on the lease between Disney and Raglan Road.
photos via Instagram
“ Piccolo’s lawsuit claims the family had decided to eat at Raglan Road in October because it was billed on Disney’s website as having “allergen free food.””
I truly hope that Disney pays through the nose for this woman’s death and for the extra suffering they caused her family!
And, as someone with celiac disease. I really want restaurants to improve their service towards people with allergies, intolerances and autoimmune diseases. Restaurants are far more likely to emphasize that you eat at their establishments at your own risk, though they say that they can accommodate you, than they actually train all of their staff properly and communicate with each other. This is a universal problem.
@ML avoid Ohio. The Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled that there’s no reasonable expectation that boneless wings are actually boneless (even when the restaurant has both boneless wings and bone-in wings on their menu)
That sounds like the old cherry pie ruling – that it would be reasonable to assume there’d be a cherry pit in a cherry pie, but not reasonable to find a band-aid.
Pottymouth Pup, Thanks for the warning, though depending on the recipe, chicken is safe. Bones, should not be part of the recipe unless specified. JD Vance’s state has some terrible politicians.
I think part of the problem is people who confuse allergies with eating preferences. It gives people and restaurants a false sense of….I don’t know, security? Like you don’t need to overly worry about putting croutons on that salad for someone who is GF because they can just pick them off because that’s what the last person did. But for a lot of people with celiac, that’s too much gluten right there in the crumbs.
I’ve been out with people who are “gluten free” but will say things like “I’m not gluten free today” and I think it just gives people a false impression. My SIL is gluten free for general health issues and my husband’s younger cousin is gluten free for celiac and there is a big difference in how they handle eating out, and I think many restaurants just put the two into one basket, you know?
Tbf to the gluten intolerant and people who mostly avoid gluten, they aren’t wrong about how they eat. My husband and I were both born with a double dose of same kind of genes for celiac disease. In me they turned on and he has absolutely no issues with gluten whatsoever. Our daughter has also inherited a double dose of the same genes and due to gluten intolerance, the hospital had her gluten free for a year before reintroducing it since she didn’t test positive as a child. She’s now someone who eats limited amounts of regular wheat, mostly spelt, and a bit of rye or barley without any issues. Restaurants should know that though—and they should also know that celiac disease is not gluten intolerance. I can’t tell you how often this goes wrong (I need supplemental B12 due to how often I’ve been glutened, and I struggle to absorb certain nutrients) and my heart really goes out to that family! It’s frustrating because you wouldn’t hire a life guard who couldn’t swim well or perform CPR correctly, but the restaurant industry will put people at risk due to poor training.
oh people can absolutely eat however they want to eat and its not “wrong.” but at the end of the day a server making less than minimum wage and reliant on tips and turning over tables quickly etc is likely going to put different types of intolerances and allergies and diseases into the same basket – this GF person could eat that and it was fine so I don’t have the time to redo this, I’m sure it will be fine.
Of course they can and should do better but I can see how it gets confusing for them very quickly especially when a restaurant is really busy. (and obviously an allergy is something very different from a food preference but that’s why a lot of restaurants have disclaimers about not being able to promise something is allergy free.)
My MIL and SIL say they are allergic to foods that they just don’t like. (One doesn’t like raw tomatoes and certain fish and one doesn’t like texture of some foods). They are not allergic to them. They will not go into anaphylaxis shock because of them. Over 20 years with my husband they still don’t understand that my kid and I both have allergies to nuts that will kill us for this reason. No, the peanuts cannot just be on the table or on top of the food; they can kill us. My inlaws are part of the problem – they want to be special too. A dislike is not an allergy or intolerance and should not be treated as such.
“billed on Disney’s website as having “allergen free food.””
Interesting. The wording is actually “allergy friendly”, not “free”. I’ve seen that for years. And the interpretation of that will likely determine who pays what, if anything.
I just went on the actual Raglan Road website and it has a huge disclaimer about not being allergy/gluten free. I have never gone to the actual website before, just went through the disney website, so no clue if that has always been there.
I’ve eaten at Raglan Road with my peanut allergic daughter and I wouldn’t say it’s touted as an allergy friendly establishment. In fact, when we are there, they were very clear about cross contamination risks. The menu doesn’t make any promises about any foods. Quite the opposite, actually. The small print indicates their kitchen can’t guarantee anything is 100% safe. Restaurants are, unfortunately, inherently risky. I don’t know what that waiter said to this woman but I am skeptical that they were told anything would be 100% safe.
Obviously, Disney’s argument here was ridiculous. I am not at all suggesting it was a legitimate legal strategy on their part. But I do worry about lawsuits like this and what their actual impact will be on food allergic customers. When laws around food production have changed in recent years, it’s meant adding allergens to foods so as to avoid any liability (see: peanut powder being added to cracker sandwiches and sesame warnings on everything). I worry that restaurants will just start to tell people they can’t accommodate them at all.
I think that, according to the initial lawsuit, the family didn’t just rely on the online description of the restaurant, they actually discussed the allergy with restaurant staff and were assured that the woman’s allergies could be accommodated
And for all we know, they did their best to accommodate. We know nothing about the actual makeup of the food she ate. We can assume the inclusion of her allergens was not blatant (or she wouldn’t have eaten the food). I’ve seen their menu in person and spoken to waitstaff there and we were told explicitly that they could not guarantee no cross contamination. The point of my comment is that if people are expecting all or nothing, food allergic individuals may be left out completely.
I saw this last night and my first thought was – Disney is confident they will win in court or with another legal argument, so they’re not going to pursue this argument (which didn’t guarantee Disney would win, it would still go to arbitration, but arbitration heavily favors the corporations with the arbitration clauses for several reasons, not least because those clauses guarantee work for the arbitrators, unfortunately.)
But this – “had not agreed just to the arbitration terms in his Disney+ trial, but also again when he signed up for an account on Disney’s website and app in order to purchase the couple’s tickets for their ill-fated theme park visit.” is different from what was being reported previously, which is that he used his Disney+ account to purchase the tickets so those terms applied. Now this is saying that he also signed up for an account on MyDisney and purchased the tickets through there, which also has the same arbitration clause. This is what I alluded to the other day – that I was sure tickets purchased through MyDisney would also have the arbitration language.
Under this current supreme court no one is overturning arbitration clauses as a threshold matter. If previous supreme courts didn’t, this one won’t. But I think many of you would be surprised at how many of your legal rights you have signed away to arbitration. It’s not just Disney by a long shot. It sucks, but its the current legal landscape and no one seems to pay a lot of attention to it until you have cases like this.
I said the other day that corporations like Disney are known for defending every lawsuit as a matter of policy, as are many major hospitals that do more cutting edge work. But disney has still made moves before to quietly settle – look to the horrible case with the child killed at the grand floridian years ago. They settled with the family for an undisclosed sum before the family even had a chance to sue. I’m not sure why Disney did not immediately take the same steps here. Maybe they really do think this will go back on Raglan Road.
Becks, I agree with your comment. The reporting has been lazy because nowhere did it mention the arbitration clause contained in MyDisney. That makes for a stronger argument on their behalf. The Disney statement was also crafted to clarify that they waived their arbitration rights in this instance only.
Disney must also be confident in whatever leasing terms that it has with the restaurant that it will not be liable as the landlord of the restaurant space.
I remember a comedian once saying that “terms and conditions” could contain the full text of Mein Kampf and people would still hit “accept.”
My question – is this really a Supreme Court issue, or is it something Congress should tackle?
Congress could absolutely tackle it, and IIRC (its been a while since I’ve followed this issue super closely) Liz Warren has tried to introduce legislation to limit arbitration clauses, but I could be totally misremembering. But its not a “sexy” issue so its not something that politicians really run on.
something else to keep in mind with arbitration clauses is that they often (always?) limit your rights to a class action lawsuit which again, benefits the big corporations, especially with something “small” like improper CC fees or improper wireless bills with an extra 50 cents added a month or whatever.
@Becks1 – thanks. It seems to me that we depend too much on the SC. I know, getting Congress to agree on anything is hard, but we really shouldn’t be hanging our hopes on a handful of life appointments when we have an entire branch of government whose job it is and for whom we can directly vote.
Elizabeth Warren for President! (I still am not over her having to drop out of the primary eight years ago.)
Everyone should try to watch the documentary Hot Coffee, all about tort reform. The title comes from the McDonald’s coffee case. Other things they talk about are caps to tort awards, and forced arbitration clauses in contracts. It’s shocking what regular non-lawyer people don’t know about their rights to sue
that is a GREAT documentary. Just the way it frames the infamous “hot coffee” case is worth the watch, but its overall a super informative documentary.
If Raglan Road is touted as an allergen-free option, then they should settle now instead of spending ludicrous sums on attorneys fees. And make a nice, fat donation to an awareness organization part of the settlement as well.
They’re not touted as allergy free or anywhere close to it. I believe the language is to the effect of “allergy-friendly options”. They also have a disclaimer on the menus that they cannot make any guarantees.
Disney dropped the arbitration because they know their exposure here is very limited. VERY limited. It wasn’t an attack of conscience.
On two different occasions, my nut allergic parent has been told by waiters and chefs that something didn’t contain nuts, only to find out that it did when she had a reaction and ended up in the hospital. One time was on a Viking River cruise. I hope — depending on the facts here — some restaurants are scared into better educating their staff.
I’m so relieved to hear you were ok!!! That must have been frightening. I think what makes this story more tragic is that the epi-pen was not enough to save her. Poor woman, poor family.
Her meal was a ‘vegan fritter, scallops, onion rings and a vegan shepherd’s pie, the lawsuit said’ My guess the onion ring batter was made with dairy. And the server didn’t properly communicate that to the chefs. Or did and the chefs didn’t see the oversight. Or everyone in the chain of service failed her.
She had a severe dairy and nut allergy. She had raised levels of dairy in her system when she died.
I hope the jury wallops Disney with the pain and suffering for the husband and family. This was all so preventable.
Legal Tom foolery by the lawyers aside I personally feel that this horrible tragedy the restaurant’s fault, rather than the park’s.
If I get food poisoning from a Taco Bell inside an airport or a Cracker Barrel in a mall it’s the fault of the restaurants not the airport or mall.
At least that’s how I see it.