Disney wants wrongful death suit thrown out because widower bought an Epcot ticket and had Disney+
By Jordan Valinsky, CNN
New York (CNN) — A man suing Walt Disney Parks and Resorts for the wrongful death of his wife is facing a new legal hurdle: Disney is trying to get it thrown out of court and sent to arbitration — because he signed up for Disney+ years earlier.
Court documents show that the company is trying to get the $50,000 lawsuit tossed because the plaintiff, Jeffrey Piccolo, signed up for a one-month trial of the streaming service Disney+ in 2019, which requires trial users to arbitrate all disputes with the company.
Company lawyers also claim that because Piccolo used the Walt Disney Parks’ website to buy Epcot Center tickets, Disney is shielded from a lawsuit from the estate of Piccolo’s deceased wife, Kanokporn Tangsuan, who died of a reaction to severe food allergies.
In a legal filing responding to Disney’s claims, Piccolo’s lawyer Brian Denney called Disney’s argument “preposterous” and said that the notion that signing up for a Disney+ free trial would bar a customer’s right to a jury trial “with any Disney affiliate or subsidiary, is so outrageously unreasonable and unfair as to shock the judicial conscience.”
Walt Disney Parks and Resort is “explicitly seeking to bar its 150 million Disney+ subscribers from ever prosecuting a wrongful death case against it in front of a jury even if the case facts have nothing to with Disney+,” Denney wrote in court papers as a response.
Piccolo is seeking damages in excess of $50,000 pursuant to Florida’s Wrongful Death Act, as well as damages for mental pain and suffering, loss of companionship and protection, loss of income and medical and funeral expenses.
“We are deeply saddened by the family’s loss and understand their grief,” a Disney spokesperson said Wednesday. “Given that this restaurant is neither owned nor operated by Disney, we are merely defending ourselves against the plaintiff’s attorney’s attempt to include us in their lawsuit against the restaurant.”
In October 2023, Kanokporn Tangsuan, her husband Jeffrey Piccolo and Piccolo’s mother dined at Raglan Road Irish Pub in Disney Springs, which is part of the Walt Disney World resort in Florida. They chose to eat at the restaurant, the lawsuit states, because they believed it would have proper safeguards against serving dairy and nuts to Tangsuan due to her allergies.
The waiter guaranteed the couple that certain foods could be made allergen-free, which the two confirmed “several more times,” according to the lawsuit. She also ordered a vegan fritter, scallops, onion rings and a vegan shepherd’s pie.
Although some of the food delivered lacked allergen-free flags, the waiter again assured them it was allergen free, but after dinner, Tangsuan, 42, went shopping in the Disney Springs area and began “suffering from a severe acute allergic reaction,” according to the lawsuit.
Despite self-administering an Epi-Pen, Tangsuan died from “anaphylaxis due to elevated levels of dairy and nut in her system,” the lawsuit said, attributing the information to a medical examiner’s investigation.
— CNN’s Ramishah Maruf and Maria Sole Campinoti contributed to this report.
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