Yahoo News Disney World Seeks to Dismiss Doctor’s Wrongful Death Lawsuit Because He Subscribed to Disney+ for a Month in 2019
Jeffrey Piccolo's wife suffered a fatal allergic reaction after dining at a Disney Springs restaurant and is suing the company
Travis Wise/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
Disney is firing back at a wrongful death lawsuit, hoping to get it dismissed because of the terms and conditions the plaintiff agreed to when signing up for Disney+ streaming service.
In February, Jeffrey Piccolo filed the $50,000 lawsuit against Disney after his wife Dr. Kanokporn Tangsuan, a physician at NYU Langone Hospital, died last year. Court documents claim Tangsuan suffered a fatal allergic reaction after eating at a Disney Springs restaurant.
However, a new legal filing from Disney claims that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Piccolo signed up for a one-month trial of Disney+ back in 2019 — and the contract requires users to arbitrate all disputes with the company.
According to court documents, the terms and conditions Piccolo agreed to when purchasing theme park tickets in 2023 also protect the company from his lawsuit.
Piccolo’s lawyers quickly shut down the filing, claiming in a motion filed August 2 that Disney’s argument is “preposterous” and “fatally flawed.”
“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 said.
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The lawyers also argue that Piccolo agreed to those terms and conditions on behalf of himself, and not on behalf of his wife or her estate, when he clicked “agree and continue” on the Disney+ registration page.
A hearing for the case is currently scheduled for October 2.
Piccolo’s lawsuit details Tangsuan’s death on October 5, 2023. Court documents state that she was having dinner at Raglan Road Irish Pub in the park’s Disney Springs area and allegedly told the waiter that she had severe allergies to dairy and nuts, asking multiple times to confirm that various items on the menu were able to be served allergen free.
Per the documents, after the waiter allegedly confirmed that the meal was allergen free, Tangsuan ate the meal. She suffered a severe allergic reaction and ultimately died later at the hospital. Her cause of death was “a result of anaphylaxis due to elevated levels of dairy and nut in her system,” the lawsuit states.
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