Florida property insurers considering the expanded use of binding arbitration to settle claims disputes may want to ponder a recent arbitration move by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts: An answer to a lawsuit against Disney, which has made headlines on both sides of the Atlantic, contends that a five-year-old trial subscription to a Disney streaming service mandates that wrongful death claims must be arbitrated outside a courtroom.
In the filing in Orange County, Florida, Disney argues that arbitration would help it avoid “heavy litigation costs.” The lawsuit was filed by the husband of a woman who died in 2023 from an allergic reaction to food served at a Disney-affiliated restaurant.
Orange County court records were not available online Wednesday. But the Law&Crime news site provided a download of the complaint and of Disney’s motion to compel arbitration. The lawsuit complaint argues that the woman, Kanokporn Tangsuan, had a severe allergy to dairy and nuts. When the family visited Disney World last year, they chose to eat at Raglan Road Irish Pub, within the Disney Springs complex, because of its allergen-free pledge. Disney Parks leases the property to the restaurant company, court filings show.
The woman, a medical doctor in New York, repeatedly asked service staff if the food could be made allergen-free. The staff assured them several times that it would be. But after finishing her meal, Tangsuan returned to her hotel room, began having trouble breathing and collapsed. She later died of what the lawsuit said was anaphylaxis from an allergic reaction to the food.
The husband, Jeffrey Piccolo, filed suit against Disney and the restaurant earlier this year. A hearing is set for October.
Disney attorneys did not respond to requests for comment from National Public Radio and other news organizations that reported on the case.
In its motion to have the suit dismissed, Disney attorneys argued that in 2019, Piccolo had signed up for a trial subscription to Disney+, a video streaming service. The fine print in the subscriber agreement notes 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,” Disney’s court filing explained.
Similar language may have been included in an agreement when Piccolo purchased tickets for the Disney theme park.
Piccolo’s attorneys, in court filings, called Disney’s legal argument “preposterous,” approaching the surreal, and fatally flawed. Disney is trying to deprive the family of its right to a public jury trial, the lawyers said.
“Even assuming that Ms. Tangsuan’s Estate is bound by the arbitration provision in the Disney+ Subscriber Agreement with Mr. Piccolo, the terms of the agreement make it clear that Mr. Piccolo was only potentially agreeing to arbitrate claims concerning the Disney+ streaming service,” reads the lengthy response to the motion to compel arbitration. “The Disney+ Subscriber Agreement on its face establishes that there was no agreement to arbitrate injury claims against other Disney entities.”
The Tangsuan family is represented in part by Miami attorney Raoul Cantero, a former Florida Supreme Court justice who has been involved in other major lawsuits that could impact insurance settlements.
Photo: The Ragland Road Irish Pub at Disney Springs (Adobe stock images).
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