https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/19/business/disney-arbitration-wrongful-death-lawsuit-intl-hnk/index.html
Disney has reversed course on a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the widower of a woman who died after eating at a resort restaurant, saying the matter can now proceed to court.
The reputational damage that team of lawyers did to the company massively outweighs the cost of a settlement. I personally will never do business with a company who thinks the EULA or TOS of one service indemnifies them from egregious negligence in a completely different line of business. This was simply beyond the pale.
Edit to note: Despite the title, they aren't actually reversing course, they still claim they have the right to force arbitration, they are just choosing to waive it in this instance. If you do business with Disney, you are a fool.
Of course they are just waving it. It is too powerful a tool for future issues to give away. But obviously it is morally completely disgusting and corrupt.
Most people won't have heard of this. But even if they did, it's Disney. They own so much media that even if you did avoid everything Disney-branded, you might still find yourself watching something from Marvel movies, National Geographic Partners, Pixar, Lucasfilm, FX, ABC news, ESPN, Hulu... I can go on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_the_Walt_Disney_Company
Probably can't avoid everything Disney, but I will try avoiding situations where they could physically harm me or my family.
"As such, we’ve decided to waive our right to arbitration and have the matter proceed in court.”
Notice they still claim arbitration is their right, that the streaming agreement is still valid, but would rather appease the masses to mitigate bad publicity.
They also don't want to test the legality of forced arbitration on something like this, where precedent against it might be set.
Especially when the judge will have seen the outrage and likely be influenced by it.
I think you’re very right.
That was my first thought... They initiated it for the precedent, they must have had reason to believe they wouldn't get the ruling they wanted.
The right case where there isn’t popular support for the plaintiff.
Bonus points if the case has more of a grey area such as the plaintiff agreed to the TOS while doing something similar with another business unit and closer in time to when the incident occurs.
I.E they sign the TOS for a Disney cruise and the incident happens a week later at the park.
Courts should keep a tally record of bogus defences and charges that a plaintiff or defendant brings for each client...
Disney states they "Waived their right to arbitration". A weasely way of seeming to agree with the public sentiment, but actually avoiding having this ruled on right now so they can fine tune the language and try again later.
When you see [Everyone Hated That] pop up after your last choice, and you panic and try to load a previous save, but the game remembers what you already did.
hmm, that would be an interesting feature for a RPG game. Are there any games that have that feature? Like some anti savescumming?
Pathologic 2. When you die it applies the consequences to all of your saves all you can't go back and change it
Oh, that's a good point, I didn't think of it this way. I felt that Pathologic 2 handled it pretty well, because the first time I died, I was confused at how it framed the consequences (instead of a straightforward "you died! Load earlier save?", you get a conversation with an NPC that explains some of the consequences, albeit somewhat obtusely). The actual consequences of death felt surprisingly forgiving, given all I've heard about Pathologic (especially the first few deaths).
The original animal crossing had something like that. If you turned off the console without saving, a mole named Resetti or something like that would rant at you about how you aren't supposed to do that. The rant would get longer the more times you turned off the console without saving.
Undertale had this. It allowed you to reload the older save and undo what you did, but it kept a second, hidden save file that you couldn't easily erase.
I agree. A little fourth wall breaking even to go with it. "You thought you could just reload? Sorry mate, some things can't be so easily undone."
They should rule on it anyway, and strike these arbitration clauses from the face of the earth. That's why Disney is backing down, not because of "oh, the humanity".
I think a lot of people were expecting this. I don't know what their lawyers were thinking, $50k absolutely is absolutely nothing to Disney.
Whereas, I've seen this story everywhere and no one is defending Disney. This makes them look horrible. You clicked "I accept", so now you can't sue them for an in-person issue at one of their parks? What are you talking about?? I realize they might want to set a precedent, but I don't think any judge would ignore public sentiment about this and side with Disney. So now they look awful for absolutely no gain...
Beyond making them look horrible, they were marching towards a court ruling against the forced arbitration clause.
Once there is a precedent for the clause being unenforceable, the clause ceases to be a deterrent to legal action - every claim would be litigated at the very least to settle the question of whether arbitration is required in a specific case.
Public shaming worked on this one, but how many other terrible takes by the corporation are unspoken? Many.
Only $50K? What happened? Did she say she was allergic to something and thy served it to her anyways?
"...in excess of $50k." This language is defined by the Florida Wrongful Death statute and means at least $50,001 but can be much more.
Too late.
I'm sure, I'm not the only one who definitely isn't going to try out Disney+ anytime soon.
After I had to seperate my Netflix account from my nieces and my sister, I actually planed to switch to Disney for a while to see what they offer, but not anymore.
It’s not too late for the actual reason they withdrew: They’re not at risk for forced arbitration to be challenged in court.
I just meant the damage in the public eye had been done.
Of course there are other legal implications, but I wasn't talking about that.
I wonder what becomes of the Hulu people being merged into Disney? Do they auto sign the new terms by simply continuing service?
In such cases you normally get an upated terms of service notification.
If you are in the EU new regulations now demand, that the costumer actively has to agree with updated terms. Otherwise its normally just a notification with a small print ->if you don't object you automatically agree.
I was gonna hire the mafia to kill my cheating bitch wife but now I just need to watch Lilo and Stitch without pirating it. They're heroes if you ask me.
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