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Petahh!? What are they talking about??
PeterExplainsTheJoke | by /u/kantnobody | 115 comments | 2026-09-05T20:08:36+00:00 Central
Comments
| /u/qualityvote2 u/kantnobody, your post does belong here! |
| /u/NebulaNomadX1 A Disney World park patron died after she was wrongfully informed about the food she was eating containing something she was allergic to. Disney tried to use the fact that she signed up for a Disney+ streaming account to dismiss the case and force it into arbitration on account of their Terms and Conditions clause, avoiding any and all responsibility for her death, despite the fact that the streaming service agreements had nothing to do with her patronizing the park. After public backlash, they reversed their position and allowed the lawsuit to continue on. The post here is saying that the insurance CA intern is going to deny their claims and make Disney themselves pay for any and all damages that result in a hurricane to their park for the same reason. |
| /u/Personal-Machine4919 That's not the entire story. The terms and confitions of Disney plus explicitly state that there will no legal litigation with Disney. Disney wanted to use this to throw away responsibility for the wrongful death case. And now the insurance company is supposed to use the same clause against Disney's lawsuit against them. |
| /u/Gruejay2 This is the key part. |
| /u/DulceEtDecorumEst The funny thing is there is an in-house counsel over at Disney who had a shit eating grin when they suggested the Disney+ free trial strategy. Bro really thought there was no way their legal brilliance could backfire because of sheer Asshattery. |
| /u/theapeboy Dude probably thought there was a 1% chance it would work, but figured that was better than the 0% chance of just admitting guilt. Bad decision though since the PR backlash was so strong. |
| /u/DulceEtDecorumEst I get you! But suing Disney was already going to be a thought mountain to climb because the restaurant was not a Disney restaurant it was an independent restaurant leasing space over at Disney springs. It's like if an employee at Hot Topic accidentally shot a client with an ironic ornamental crossbow and then the victims family sues the Mall. It's a tough one already. |
| /u/Neveronlyadream It's a tough one, but I'm willing to bet the strategy was to sue Disney who has more money than God and hope they settled, because going after the restaurant wasn't going to be nearly as lucrative. I've seen a ton of people blame Disney and it wasn't their fault. This time, at least. They'd have made a much better case pointing that out than trying to get the case thrown out and alerting the whole world that they tried to get out of it using unrelated TOS shenanigans. |
| /u/jarlscrotus I don't remember exactly and I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that was also included in the same filing there were like a dozen things in the motion for dismissal, including that, it was all thrown at the wall like a pot of spaghetti to see what would stick |
| /u/riza_dervisoglu The security belongs to the mall. How come the arbalet got inside? Same goes for the standards put forward by Disney over the leasing restaurants. There are regulations inside that are not present outside! |
| /u/Throwawaaaay44 In these cases, you sue everyone, to keep them from shifting the blame. |
| /u/Zimlun Maybe its just me, but I feel like using the "but its a third party" excuse gets used too much. Like imagine you go to a Disney resort, one of the mascots in a Micky Mouse costume punches you in the face, and Disney says "We've made it so that technically all our mascots are independent contractors rather than employees, which means we have zero responsibility or liability for this incident". |
| /u/BlazeGamma Disney is still responsible for permitting them to be in their park to do business, it's Disney's responsibility to make sure any third party in there is following rules, procedures, and etc. and permitting the sale of said items or whatever other goods/services are being offered within their park grounds. |
| /u/boasterstrudel The stupid thing is they weren't guilty to begin with. It was a tenant who owned a restaurant at their shopping village. That restaurant was liable, not the landlord, in this case Disney. Disney could have just fought it in court and won easily, but they decided to be shitheads. |
| /u/ProfessorPrudent2822 Worse decision because callous behavior like that increases your liability: Plaintiff's attorney sees you're deliberately harassing his client with dilatory motions to try to avoid paying or fatiguing him into settling and so adds a complaint of intentional infliction of emotional distress and a demand for eight figures in punitive damages on top of the initial wrongful death compensation. Also, once the arbitration clause is ruled unconscionable, you expose yourself to a class action lawsuit over having it in the first place. |
| /u/Kaoes1530 Was it? Disney plus subscriptions are up since this happened. |
| /u/walkslikeaduck08 I heard from friends in litigation that on a legal basis the argument was actually sound, but it was the PR nightmare that made it not worth it |
| /u/NosyCookBogtrotter Well these people are typically some sort of psychopathic maniac or whatever so the fuck would they know about morals or optics I guess |
| /u/phire I actually suspect it was a lawyer on the autism spectrum (many good lawyers are). Most psychopaths can recognise the potential backlash, and will tend to avoid such "mistakes", just for the wrong reasons. But lawyers on the spectrum can sometimes get way too caught up in the correctness of their argument to even notice there are moral issues with the argument, yet alone stop consider how the public might react. |
| /u/ProfessorPrudent2822 What about the fact that there's such a thing as unconscionability in contract law? If a judge finds enforcing a contract to be morally reprehensible, he can throw out the contract as unconscionable. |
| /u/phire Doesn't really come into it. The corporate lawyer playbook is to throw as much shit at the wall as possible. Even if none of it sticks, it still results in wasting a bunch of legal fees responding to each motion. There isn't really a good legal reason to avoid that argument... Just so many good PR reasons, which someone really should have caught before they filed that. |
| /u/cattorney-at-claw It was outside counsel. I know the attorney who recommended this strategy. He is a profound asshole and idiot and no one likes working with him. He was actually taken off the case at Disney's request because of how poorly he treated witnesses. He is somehow still proud of himself for this 1000 IQ move. |
| /u/DulceEtDecorumEst It's Dan Newlin isn't it? Probably did finger guns after getting dismissed and drove off in to the sunset with his cammo camaro. |
| /u/listen2whatursayin It worked for Uber. Someone was badly injured as a passenger in an Uber (someone else in the car had the actual uber account) but their kid had apparently signed up for Uber Eats that negated the liability if I recall correctly |
| /u/pedanticlawyer I wouldn't even say in house counsel- I think it was some young associate at whatever major firm they were using at the time who got overly creative. Parter probably didn't catch this idiocy because they got lazy and didn't review the associate's work. |
| /u/Ben_HaNaviim I'm guessing that it had more to do with dragging their feet and making the litigates go to arbitration to avoid the costs of the legal process. |
| /u/TemporalGrid I think another piece being left out is that the account you start with Disney that you get Disney+ from is the same account for purchasing theme Park tickets, making resort reservations, etc. So it's a little misleading to say the account was not connected to their trip to Walt Disney World. |
| /u/Marzipan_civil What, so in order to buy any trip tickets to a Disney resort, you have to agree to their t&C's including the one to not involve in litigation? Like a sneaky waiver that they didn't make clear was a waiver? (Yes, we should read the t&C's anyway) |
| /u/Abeytuhanu No, the case was for a wrongful death at a mall restaurant that Disney rented land to. They tried to bring Disney into the suit by claiming they were partly responsible as their map said the restaurant was allergen friendly. In order to access the map, they had to agree to ToS that required arbitration, thus the reason for bringing in Disney made the lawsuit inappropriate to litigate in court. Even then, the ToS argument was far down the list of all the reasons why the suit was inappropriate, the primary reason being that Disney was just a landlord and had no legal culpability for the death |
| /u/Marzipan_civil But if, for instance, a visitor died in the park for a reason that was caused by Disney (poor ride maintenance, for instance). Would Disney still pull the ToS argument? If Disney were the actual defendant. |
| /u/Abeytuhanu Potentially, they could write a ToS that prohibited civil cases, but that wouldn't prevent a criminal case from going forth because the injured party is the State. That's why criminal cases are always named something like State of California v. Disney Incorporated. At best, it would force wrongful death civil suits into arbitration, but I'm not sure that would be enforceable |
| /u/Vasheerii I know kingdom hearts is owned by disney but I don't see how Sora gets involved in this. |
| /u/kantnobody Crazy corporate bastards. |
| /u/Karma_Hound Disney cut the new DuckTales at three seasons which is all I needed to know they are shit eating butt loving bastards. They don't want to create anything new, just instill minimal effort to continue to feed on the rot of once loved creations from their dead benefactors. |
| /u/StoneGoldX They don't want to create anything new... like a fourth season of a second series of Duck Tales? You're not saying anything wrong, except the example of what set you off is literally that. |
| /u/Vast_Highlight3324 I don't really understand their comment, like sure Disney creates a lot of unoriginal work these days, but it's not "continuing to feed on the rot of once loved creations from their dead benefactors", the stuff they're pumping out lately has been mostly more recent stuff, Frozen, Toy Story (Pixar in general lately), Moana, Marvel and Star Wars. No one thinks they're "Milking the franchise" of classics like Bambi, Dumbo. |
| /u/Karma_Hound Anything they do successfully like that they cut short as soon as merch sales get over a hump as they don't actually care about the new content they produce, they just pay writers to care. Many of the writers, artists, and voice actors were fans of the original show and comics and put a ton of effort into it just to suddenly be told season 3 was the last one halfway through it. |
| /u/cortesoft I am confused... are you mad they did any seasons of the show or mad they only did 3? Because your comment kinda makes it sound like both. |
| /u/Karma_Hound The writers put a ton of effort into reviving it, only for it to suddenly be cut short to the disappointment of both writers and viewers as they had finished pumping and dumping it for merch. |
| /u/hiding_in_site It actually dropped this legal strategy https://www.npr.org/2024/08/14/nx-s1-5074830/disney-wro ngful-death-lawsuit-disney |
| /u/Beneficial-Act-9933 Also key was the the restaurant was NOT a Disney restaurant. It was a restaurant that was renting space on the disney land if I remember correctly. |
| /u/ResearcherTeknika Whether or not disney won or not is irrelevant, the important part is that they immediately jumped to "you signed up for disney plus so we dont have to do anything" |
| /u/FatalBipedalCow0822 If I remember correctly it's even worse, it was a free trial of Disney+. Just googled it, yes it was a free trial. https://www.npr.org/2024/08/14/nx-s1-5074830/disney-wro ngful-death-lawsuit-disney |
| /u/vulpinefever That's typically how a defence lawyer works, you put forward every single possible argument that could be used to defend against liability even if it's kind of stupid. Their argument was basically "We aren't liable because it isn't our restaurant and even if we were liable, they signed an arbitration agreement multiple times including when they made the reservation and when they signed up for Disney+ so it should be settled elsewhere." |
| /u/ResearcherTeknika Still, a corporate lawyer should have looked over that and thought about how that would look to the public. |
| /u/vulpinefever They're a corporate defence lawyer, not a PR specialist. Their job is to defend their client from liability, not make them look good. |
| /u/ResearcherTeknika I did not mean the same lawyer, just another one in their employ at minimum. |
| /u/Antique-Coach-214 This is the part that people miss that frustrates me. Raglan Road served food, that had the allergen. Raglan Road is ran by a company that rents space from Disney. Raglan Road, unless proven otherwise, hires the staff and trains the staff within the premises. Disney didn't NEED a EULA defense. Disney only needed to send a junior in-house counsel from the Celebration office, and make a motion to remove Disney as a non-responsible party, as purely the landlord, and provide the rental agreement highlighted to that fact. This leaves 100% of the responsibility with Raglan if they did something egregious and it doesn't end in a PR nightmare/meme. It was such an unforced error from a company that used to be more put together on the outside. |
| /u/Additional-Usual5994 Like strongman competitors moving boxes from your house mismanagement. They also could've paid the person, what would it have been? 4 hours worth of pay? it's someone funeral for sakes! cancel raglan road, pay for the funeral, listen to the families grievances and hear out the judge on the ruling to start the court, present your finding. whats with this 16 year old goofball concept of oh you signed up for disney+ we can se it in our database. like screw us as a family for being a fan. |
| /u/Antique-Coach-214 I mean, yeah, Disney COULD have earned goodwill. Raglan Road is worth a lot of revenue, but they could have helped out. Point is, Disney had no legal obligation here, but they didn't need to cite a fucking EULA to prove it. |
| /u/Miserable-Drink-4995 Point is, Disney had no legal obligation here, but they didn't need to cite a fucking EULA to prove it. Clearly a memelord fell on the sword for us |
| /u/Antique-Coach-214 ?? Or someone with a basic understanding of liability? |
| /u/m4cksfx I'd say it was about that stupid lawyer of theirs. Could have done the logical thing, decided to do the hilariously unhinged thing instead. |
| /u/Miserable-Drink-4995 They would not have been able to pull this off, unlike our hero |
| /u/Kiley_Fireheart Stupidity, or overthinking a defense, are good explanations for it. But that little conspiracy bug in me thinks they were trying to test the defense on what they may have thought was a nothing case that no one would notice. Disney's legal teams are known to be no joke. If they could get the EULA defense to work it would be easier to do again in the future. It's a gut feeling with no evidence, but Disney's lawyers do be ruthless and cunning like that. |
| /u/grendus That's the explanation that makes the most sense to me. There were far, far better legal strategies available to them... but getting some legal precedent established that the EULA for Disney+ could extend beyond just their streaming service would be huge for them. Frankly, I would love to see "Forced Arbitration" clauses ruled unconstitutional in the US. The Constitution guarantees access to the courts, and it should not be possible to waive that right in perpetuity. |
| /u/Antique-Coach-214 Listened to a contracts lecture for 1L. The professor stated, that any consumer or reasonable person would find Forced Arbitration as a morally objectionable practice that should be removed. However, as a lawyer, writing a EULA, you'd be committing legal malpractice to not include such a clause. Apple lost a couple of billion when they tried dropping the EULA for six months or so, last decade. Somehow the courts saw that as a problem for business, when they should have seen that as a problem for the business model. All I know, is that Easterbrook is a bastard. |
| /u/Antique-Coach-214 No reasonable human being, would uphold forced arbitration when a death happens and a company has ANY reasonable liability. Go listen to any contracts lecture on the subject of Forced Arbitration |
| /u/robfrizzy Not quite. It is true that Raglan Road is not a Disney owned restaurant. But Disney was named in the lawsuit because the victim looked up Raglan Road's menu on Disney's website and the site did not list allergens on the menu. Either way, regardless of what the menu said, they repeatedly asked the restaurant staff if the meal could be safely made allergen-free, and they continued to reassure them it was. Doesn't seem to matter what the online menu says at that point. |
| /u/Antique-Coach-214 Man, that was a STRETCH from the plaintiff side. I'm not pro-corporate, but I'd not be mad if a Judge had separated the two parties and then dismissed the suit against Disney. |
| /u/WhyMustIMakeANewAcco It wasn't an error. They were attempting to use a safe case to get a precedent that any level of having touched Disney+ at any point in your life = you can never sue them ever for any reason ever. |
| /u/Antique-Coach-214 That wasn't the precedent, that already existed for other, established cases far beforehand. A forced arbitration agreement is a zero sum agreement when a broken law or gross negligence is involved. It is unenforceable as any Contracts student will tell you. A death resulting in any reasonable involvement from Disney will never be protected under a forced arbitration clause. |
| /u/cortesoft Why would they choose a case like this as a "safe" case? They should have chosen one where the plaintiffs had done something wrong or were not sympathetic for some reason. This was a horrible canary. |
| /u/Apprehensive_Spell_6 Anybody who has worked with Disney's legal knows that they famously nickel and dime everybody. I know people who installed a new water treatment system and were paid 10% less than the invoice. Why? Because that's an amount not worth going to court over, as the legal fees against Disney are gonna bankrupt you. |
| /u/jrr6415sun disney is much more than just a landlord, they control almost everything that goes on at disney springs even if they are a 3rd party. All of their menus are on disney's app. To get a reservation you have to go through disney's app. |
| /u/Antique-Coach-214 I... Ok, that's not how that works, just because you're outraged. The lease agreement will clearly put all responsibility for meal prep, menu ingredients listings, and allergy control, firmly in Raglan Road's hands. I'm not defending Disney, I am defending common sense. Common sense, states that the menu listing information was generated by Raglan, Disney published the information in good faith, and Raglan conveyed that same information in good faith to the customer, based on training. The failure was the training and kitchen staff procedures. However, the EULA should NEVER have come up in court. |
| /u/Da12khawk https://i.redd.it/3k14bei2vrnh1.gif |
| /u/Sir-Top-Cheetah The clause would prevent the insurance company from suing Disney tho, not the other way around. this meme makes no sense |
| /u/TreasonalAllergies Yeah that's where I'm at this is meaningless. Disney is the plaintiff not the defendant here. |
| /u/DustyF3d0r4 The crazy thing is that Disney had a better lay-up to not go to court which is that they don't actually own the restaurant that the couple ate at. |
| /u/-3udaimonia- The terms and confitions of Disney plus explicitly state that there will no legal litigation with Disney. Is this really legally enforceable? That seems like an insane condition to me. |
| /u/seams It's almost certainly not, no. Terms and Conditions are always a bit of a shrug, from what I can tell. Sometimes you can be held to them, but not as often as you'd think. In this case I feel like there's 0% chance it would get enforced lol, which makes the choice to try that much weirder other than trying to run the other side out of money. |
| /u/potato_hut Hmm perhaps this is why Monopolies are bad? š¤ |
| /u/jaraksdaruma What country are you in that "confitions"; is the spell check default? Not hating, just genuinely curious. |
| /u/jrr6415sun but the clause is that they can't sue disney, not that disney can't sue the user. This meme makes no sense at all |
| /u/Captain21423 That's literally what they said. |
| /u/kingkalukan That's also not the full story. It was at a restaurant not own or ran by Disney |
| /u/Plane-Tiger-4534 Kind of left out the fact that the person died at a restaurant at Disney Springs, and Disney doesn't own that restaurant. The person was said to have relied on the information on the Disney website. It's even weirder than the headlines. |
| /u/BlueHero45 Just to be a little clearer arbitration doesn't mean they would avoid all responsibility, it just moves the lawsuit to a private setting. A paid judge would then hear both sides and decide how much money they should pay out if any. Since the big companies are usually paying these judges, despite their promises to be impartial, they do appear to be bias. It's definitely quicker then a regular lawsuit, and people do get paid out, however they likely get less then in a proper lawsuit. Hard to say for sure since the private nature means getting actual figures hard. |
| /u/feioo Arbitration also hides the company's wrongdoing from the public (as is the intent) which creates an environment where they can dodge actual accountability, which includes fixing the problem so another person isn't harmed the same way, and just toss their victims a little hush money to make the issue go away. Mandatory arbitration should not be legal. |
| /u/No-Skill522 The constitution very clearly states it's not legal. We just ignore that. |
| /u/Bussin1648 None of what they said is actually what happened. That was some of the public perception of what happened, so that's why it fits the joke. |
| /u/GitEmSteveDave Seriously, they are stating the facts completely wrong. |
| /u/AntiAcronymSquad What's CA? Insurance California? Expand all acronyms! |
| /u/name00124 I think it's supposed to be "insurance co [company]", but autocorrect. |
| /u/blade740 A Disney World park patron died after she was wrongfully informed about the food she was eating containing something she was allergic to. To be fair, she was wrongfully informed by the restaurant itself, which was not owned by Disney. Their claim against Disney was simply because Disney had the restaurant on a list on their web site of restaurants that "offer allergy-friendly options". It's at least a little relevant that their entire complaint with Disney was related to information that they found on the web site. |
| /u/Lord_Mylothe2st Oh my god I found serial designation N |
| /u/NebulaNomadX1 https://preview.redd.it/px3wefgv1snh1.png?width=449&form at=png&auto=webp&s=1d130a1f472b3b15400c3543ba5cf0079f274 4c4 |
| /u/C4mperpr0 Damn did I miss the Family Guy - Murder Drones crossover? š |
| /u/Pan_TheCake_Man They were not Disney world/park patrons, they were patrons at a public Disney licensed shopping mall and actually at a 3rd party restaurant But yeah they went about it the dumbest way possible |
| /u/NebulaNomadX1 https://preview.redd.it/wzvhguriesnh1.png?width=320&form at=png&auto=webp&s=cc9dc87835f51022da576a06231d3c0722aed 5bb |
| /u/thekingiguess Oh, that type of N? ehhhhhhhhhhhh still phenomenal |
| /u/thekingiguess Also my awards are free rn for some reason??? |
| /u/AnAppMadeMeDoIt One detail that often gets left out: The establishment that served the allergen was not owned or operated by Disney. Disney is just the landlord. So Disney was arguing they shouldn't be party to it. Not sure why the Disney+ terms were the only way the lawyers could see to get there. I thought landlords, especially ones this size, generally had indemnity clauses where even if they lost the case the lessee would have to cover any losses incurred by the lessor caused by the lessee's actions. In this case, serving food marked allergen free to a person with an allergy. |
| /u/jayphat99 Also, more clarification: she wasn't the one who signed up for Disney+, it was her husband. And it wasn't even paid; it was the 7-day free trial on his XBox which he cancelled. |
| /u/GrimeyScorpioDuffman What's SD-N? I haven't watched family guy in many years so I don't know any new characters |
| /u/Terazilla My low-key vaguely-plausible conspiracy theory belief is that the reason all fast-food places push their apps so hard, is for exactly this reason. |
| /u/HustlinInTheHall They push apps because it is software on a device with your precise location that you never go anywhere without and look at every 3 minutes. Their website can't push deals and sales and try to guess when you're hungry and near a restaurant |
| /u/ALM0126 After public backlash, they reversed their position and allowed the lawsuit to continue on. Didn't a tribunal dismissed the clause since the terms and condittions agreement isn't legally binding?? Disney couldn't allow shit because they aren't in a legal position to deny the process, despite using that argument to try and avoid the lawsuit |
| /u/AltonIllinois They would still have responsibility for the death, it would just be that the matter would have to be resolved via arbitration instead of litigation. |
| /u/jrr6415sun The post here is saying that the insurance CA intern is going to deny their claims and make Disney themselves pay for any and all damages that result in a hurricane to their park for the same reason. the insurance company is going to deny a claim because they signed up for disney+. The joke makes no sense. It is disney that can deny the claim because of disney+ not the person who signs up. |
| /u/meandmyreddit And the patron happened to be a doctor |
| /u/Sure_Reporter_6237 it makes me happy seeing a murder drones fan on the wild |
| /u/Falith another reason to pirate their content. lovely. |
| /u/cheeseybees Sorry, minor point... It wasn't that she signed up to Disney+, but him, the husband who wasn't killed, which I think is extra hellish! There was a term and condition saying that they'd go to Disney with issues before an external court.... |
| /u/canman7373 The crazy part is you know they have crazy expensive lawyers. Who looked at it and were like oh by the law there is a small chance this could work let's do it. But their brilliant law mind did not think about the blowback. Like did some interns or people under them say, this may look pretty bad and they still did it? Like is their no cost allowances there for things like this? Because there really is such a thing as bad press, them dropping that claim is proof of it. |
| /u/LukeDragnar Disney being evil for the nĀ° time |
| /u/Protoclown98 Disney tried to argue that if you ever signed up for Disney + you had to do their binding arbitration even if your lawsuit was unrelated to that. The joke is Disney will need to arbitrate with their insurance over this issue, and arbitration is generally viewed as bad. |
| /u/Realistic-Duty-3874 Yeah the judge was never going to buy this stupid legal argument from Disney. |
| /u/ToucanTuocan It's a terrible argument, but a great stall tactic. The number 1 strategy of corporate lawfare is to drag the process out so long that only an equally sized corporation can afford to keep the suit going. Disney let up and allowed the suit to continue because there was too much negative brand image being associated with the incident. It's all costs and benefits, from the top to the bottom. |
| /u/Protoclown98 Tbh it's pretty much the only legal strategy that exists when you fucked up so bad you have to pay. |
| /u/Bussin1648 They didn't have to pay. The plaintiff withdrew the lawsuit because they had no standing to sue them. |
| /u/Typical_Response_950 i mean if everything is just a stall tactic why not just send a lawyer in to speak gibberish until the judge dismisses them and then bring in another lawyer to do the same and repeat forever |
| /u/PFunk224 A judge can do more than just dismiss an attorney for violating someone's rights, and a right to a speedy trial is granted by the 6th amendment to the US constitution. A judge can hold an attorney in contempt of court, they can issue sanctions against the attorney, or even file a complaint to the bar association to have the attorney disbarred from practicing law. |
| /u/Top_Gun87 Probably contempt of court at some point? |