Sued For ‘Wrongful Death’, Disney Cites US Widower’s App Subscription To Get Case Tossed

Disney says its app subscriber agreements bar court action, and petitioner Jeffrey Piccolo is bound to these terms since he signed up to use two of its apps. His lawyers call argument ‘preposterous’.

Piccolo’s attorneys have called Disney’s motion as “preposterous” and “outrageously unreasonable.”

Source : Pixabay

Disney is trying to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit pertaining to its famous Walt Disney World Resort – popularly called Disney World – by citing the petitioner’s subscription with its app offerings, New York Post has reported. Disney has argued that the app subscriber agreements bar court action, and petitioner Jeffrey Piccolo is bound to these terms since he signed up to use two of its apps – an argument termed “preposterous” by his lawyers.

Piccolo filed the lawsuit after his wife – Kanokporn Tangsuan, a doctor – died due to a fatal allergic reaction after eating at a restaurant in the resort’s ‘Disney Springs’ shopping complex. The incident took place in Florida last October. 

According to the New York Post report, Disney has claimed that since Piccolo signed up for a one-month trial of the Disney+ streaming service in 2019, the $50,000 suit should be moved out of the courts, to be settled through arbitration. 

“In the May 31 motion filed in Orange County, Fla. circuit court, Disney argued that the Disney+ subscriber agreement Piccolo signed years earlier on his PlayStation called for any dispute — with the exception of small claims — to be ‘resolved by individual binding arbitration’,” the portal reported.

The company has said Piccolo agreed to similar language when he used the ‘My Disney Experience’ app to buy tickets to visit EPCOT, one of the resort’s theme parks, in September 2023.

The Disney+ contract shared by the company says that subscribers cannot “have a dispute heard as a class action or private attorney general action”. Additionally, the contract states, “No arbitration or proceeding can be combined with another without the prior written consent of all parties to the arbitrations or proceedings,” Florida Politics reported.

Piccolo’s attorneys have called Disney’s motion “outrageously unreasonable”. 

“The notion that terms agreed to by a consumer when creating a Disney+ free trial account would forever bar that consumer’s right to a jury trial in any dispute with any Disney affiliate or subsidiary, is so outrageously unreasonable and unfair as to shock the judicial conscience, and this court should not enforce such an agreement,” the lawyers wrote in an August 2 motion, according to New York Post.

They also said Piccolo filed the wrongful death suit as the “personal representative of the estate of Kanokporn Tangsuan” and not on behalf of himself.

Piccolo and Tangsuan, 42, a New York University doctor, visited the Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant at Disney Springs on October 5. She had reportedly repeatedly told the restaurant staff that she had nut and dairy allergies when she placed an order for scallops, onion rings, broccoli and corn fritters. The Post report says that, soon after leaving the restaurant, Tangsuan started experiencing difficulty breathing and collapsed. 

Even though an epi-pen – used in emergencies to treat severe allergic reactions – was immediately administered to her, she died at a local hospital.