The Walt Disney Company is fighting a wrongful death lawsuit filed by a grieving husband on the grounds that the plaintiff released the company from liability when he activated a one-month Disney+ trial nearly five years ago. According to court documents first obtained by the New York Post, Jeffrey Piccolo, husband of late New York University Doctor Kanokporn Tangsuan, is seeking $50,000 in damages after his wife died of a fatal allergic reaction at a Disney Spring restaurant in Florida last October—but Disney claims the fine print of his subscriber agreement prevents him from ever bringing the company to court.
In 2019, Piccolo activated a free one-month trial of Disney’s streaming service on his PlayStation, at which point he signed an agreement that any dispute with Disney (aside from small claims) should be “resolved by individual binding arbitration” rather than going to court. He also accepted a similar agreement when he used the “My Disney Experience” app to buy tickets to Epcot one month before his wife’s death.
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“The Terms of Use, which were provided with the Subscriber Agreement, include a binding arbitration clause,” the company wrote in its motion. “The first page of the Subscriber Agreement states, in all capital letters, that ‘any dispute between You and Us, Except for Small Claims, is subject to a class action waiver and must be resolved by individual binding arbitration’.”
The company went on to argue that whether Piccolo actually read the provisions before accepting them is “immaterial.” Disney is “deeply saddened” by Tangsuan’s death, but says they are “merely defending ourselves against the plaintiff’s attorney’s attempt to include us in their lawsuit against the restaurant.”
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“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,” Piccolo’s lawyers countered, calling it “absurd” and “preposterous” to argue that more than 150 million Disney+ users have waived their rights to sue the company in perpetuity.
A hearing on the matter has been scheduled for October 2 in Orlando, Florida.
Connor Walcott is a staff writer for Valuetainment.com. Follow Connor on X and look for him on VT’s “The Unusual Suspects.”
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