Death due to allergy and mutual agreement

Read the subscription agreement for Disney+ and ESPN+ again. (You’ve read it before, right?) Read it more carefully this time. A man named Jeffrey Piccolo is learning this lesson the hard way—as if his life hasn’t been hard enough lately.

Piccolo filed a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company after his wife, Kanokporn Tangsuan, died from an allergy to foods served at the Raglan Road restaurant at Disney World. Piccolo says in a lawsuit (obtained by IndieWire) that he and his wife, Tangsuan, who knew of her food allergies, received repeated “assurances” that the food she was served there was “allergen-free.” The medical examiner’s report found that Tangsuan’s cause of death was “anaphylaxis due to high levels of dairy and nuts in her body.”

Piccolo filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Disney Parks, seeking damages “in excess of $50,000,” as well as attorneys’ fees and other costs. First, only a jury trial is required.

Here comes the illogical part. Disney responded by asking to compel arbitration instead. Why? “In November 2019, Piccolo initially created a Disney account through the Disney+ website,” the request (which IndieWire also obtained) states.

We all made it: Disney+ launched in the USA on November 12, 2019.

You may be wondering: what does his wife’s death have to do with television? According to Disney, subscribing to Disney+ means that subscribers cannot file lawsuits. They must resolve any disputes with The Walt Disney Company and its affiliates through binding arbitration.

The application continues: “Piccolo completed the web registration form by providing personal information, including his email address, and creating a password. Before registering the account, Piccolo was required to immediately click ‘Agree and Continue’.[b]By clicking “Agree and Continue” you agree to our Subscriber Agreement. Then select Piccolo “OK” and “Continue”.

“There may be cases where disputes arise between us.” Disney+ Subscriber Agreement “You, on the one hand, and Disney+ and/or ESPN+, on the other hand, agree to resolve all Disputes (including any related Disputes involving The Walt Disney Company or its affiliates) through binding, individual arbitration.”

According to the decision, “disputes” are defined as disputes involving virtually any legal issue at any time. There are exceptions for small claims court and intellectual property rights.

Spokespeople for The Walt Disney Company did not immediately respond to IndieWire’s request for comment on this story.

In short, Disney claims that Piccolo (and any Disney+ or ESPN+ subscribers) agreed to settle any “past, present, or future” legal issues with the Walt Disney Company by accepting the streaming service’s subscription agreement. This means there are no class action lawsuits or jury trials. Selecting “Accept” at the end of the very long legal terms of our subscription agreement so we can access Bluey (and all other content) is called a “click-through agreement.”

Disney’s lawyers have strengthened their position, explaining that since Piccolo also bought tickets online to visit Epcot Center (and never went there), he was once again forced to waive his right to a jury trial for anything Disney-related. The happiest place on earth, what happiness.

“Whether Piccolo actually reviewed Disney’s terms is also irrelevant,” Disney argues.

To be fair to Disney, it’s possible that other streaming companies have similar clauses in their subscription contracts. I reached out to representatives from Netflix, Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video to ask if they have similar agreements, and several of them said they were “looking into it.” (Of course, Peacock’s parent company NBCUniversal is the only one that operates a theme park, so a direct comparison is incomplete.)

Disney+ plans start at $7.99 per month—or, in Piccolo’s case, much more.