Doctor Dies From Allergic Reaction After Raglan Road Meal at Disney Springs

[Jabroniville]

Yeah I was thinking about this thread when I read that article. Disney is trying to get out of the lawsuit... because the guy "agreed to" the Disney contract when he signed up for Disney+ and it said all disputes would be handled via arbitration.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Disney is trying to get out of the lawsuit... because the guy "agreed to" the Disney contract when he signed up for Disney+ and it said all disputes would be handled via arbitration.

That's ridiculous! A contract for Disney+ use should only cover disputes about Disney+ itself.

I actually do think Disney had the right to dispute the lawsuit - but on the grounds that they don't own the restaurant (Great Irish Pubs Florida does) not because of this argument. It would serve them right if people started canceling Disney+ over it.

 

[DanceDisney23]

It would serve them right if people started canceling Disney+ over it.

According to the article, that wouldn’t help. It sounds like the plaintiff wasn’t a Disney+ subscriber at the time of his wife’s death. He had once, in 2019, signed up for a one month free trial. It seems Disney now argues that by agreeing to the T&Cs for that free trial, he gave up his right to sue the company for all eternity. Ridiculous. I hope the judge shuts that down.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I hope the judge shuts that down.

Agreed

 

[HopperFan]

I couldn't read the Newsday article (pay wall) and W D W N T is not trustworthy BUT assuming the story is fairly accurate ..........

Disney has the BEST of the BEST lawyers and deals with guests lawsuits all the time. This is a strange angle so I'm going with they are doing this and likely have more angles lined up to delay this as long as possible for two reasons (1) Not only wear the husband down but make it a financial decision if he wants to continue. (2) They are probably still working on a full investigation, timeline, etc to determine what actually happened that day.

Disney is a landlord of the restaurant where the event supposedly happened. I would think that is more of a solid defense than anything, so it is likely their last defense. What happened that day is HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS, their movements and timeline made no sense ... all quite fishy to me. If I were Disney I'd be combing through every video, talking to every person possible, look at cameras on every possible place she could have purchased food products. The husband left his wife, his mother left his wife and so they have no idea if she consumed something after they left.

 

[DaviVascaino]

I couldn't read the Newsday article (pay wall) and W D W N T is not trustworthy BUT assuming the story is fairly accurate ..........

Disney has the BEST of the BEST lawyers and deals with guests lawsuits all the time. This is a strange angle so I'm going with they are doing this and likely have more angles lined up to delay this as long as possible for two reasons (1) Not only wear the husband down but make it a financial decision if he wants to continue. (2) They are probably still working on a full investigation, timeline, etc to determine what actually happened that day.

Disney is a landlord of the restaurant where the event supposedly happened. I would think that is more of a solid defense than anything, so it is likely their last defense. What happened that day is HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS, their movements and timeline made no sense ... all quite fishy to me. If I were Disney I'd be combing through every video, talking to every person possible, look at cameras on every possible place she could have purchased food products. The husband left his wife, his mother left his wife and so they have no idea if she consumed something after they left.

Sure, a doctor, someone who really understands the danger of eating contaminated food, would just eat anything and have no idea what they are eating, right?

Sure, let's side with the multibillionaire company vs the poor guest who died over allegedly contaminated food (which happens all the time, cross contamination is real and scary). let's wear them down, until the best of the best lawyers have time to come up with the next strategy to dodge this lawsuit.

 

[Smugpugmug]

The way that Disney is trying to get out of this lawsuit is shameful but unfortunately this isn't the lowest they've gotten. I'm glad to see that people are slamming Disney for this across social media. It's gross.

 

[RivShore]

I couldn't read the Newsday article (pay wall) and W D W N T is not trustworthy BUT assuming the story is fairly accurate

This article should be available: https://www.disboards.com/threads/dis-shareholders-and-stock-info-only.3881254/post-65669537

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Sure, a doctor, someone who really understands the danger of eating contaminated food, would just eat anything and have no idea what they are eating, right?

Sure, let's side with the multibillionaire company vs the poor guest who died over allegedly contaminated food (which happens all the time, cross contamination is real and scary). let's wear them down, until the best of the best lawyers have time to come up with the next strategy to dodge this lawsuit.

It's not about siding with anyone. You really do want actual investigation to go through. I'm not sure if you were in the thread many months ago or read what happened but there was absolutely discrepancies with the family's stories, there were things that didn't make logical sense at all. Poor guest or not it doesn't mean that an entity is responsible on the basis of something happening to that guest (whatever that may be). Hopper's point is what most of us talked about months ago--that an investigation really needs to trace the steps of her and go through everything. That should happen regardless of who it is.

But I definitely agree the tactics Disney is using are weak with the Disney+ angle and so thin of an excuse to use. It's clever but not morally right IMO.



___
In my area we're dealing with a very disturbing situation of food tampering in disgusting ways by an ex-employee of a local company with 3 locations. It was found out by the person posting a video of themselves doing what they were doing on the internet and talking about it (the FBI was involved doing most of the investigation along with the health department). They investigated and narrowed down the timeline of potentially impacted people who experienced food poisoning as well as emotional distress. Lawsuits filed in against the company for their lack of scrutiny in hiring practices, and "breached an implied warranty its food would be safe" among other things.

The incidents (presumed to be more than 20 separate times) happened back in early April to mid-April and had to be narrowed down via investigation as the original dates included into late March. The location where the incident occurred just closed down last weekend, they couldn't stay open with the lawsuits mounting, which at that time were about 10. Since then there's been more and now 21 lawsuits are in play and includes local and out of state individuals. I said it from the beginning of the lawsuits filing in this will probably bankrupt the company (which owns what used to be all 3 locations in our area) which is unfortunate because we go to it (a different location than the ground zero) for dessert and coffee and they have pretty good food too.

The company contends "it did not know that (he) was allegedly “secretly and criminally” contaminating the food. Once it was discovered, the restaurant terminated his employment." They also said the person's "alleged actions were outside his scope of employment." The person who did this stuff is charged with "22 counts of criminal threat for allegedly adulterating or contaminating food and one count of criminal damage" The criminal damage is because they damaged restaurant equipment while carrying on their acts.

I've been torn on how I feel about this because I don't want the restaurant to go out of business but in this case there may be enough to show at least shared negligence. I haven't been back to the restaurant since this happened and I had eaten there (at a different location) only a few days after the last incident is presumed to have occurred. Psychologically it's been hard to even think about going back even though the person is in jail and has been.


___
Ultimately the truth is you're more likely to actually find out what happened, more likely to have the party responsible OR shared responsibility assessed if that is prudent when it's a small to medium sized company. Larger companies may settle just to settle and doesn't actually address fault. Disney does and has settled in the past with undisclosed details leading the public to not have the full picture. I could see this settling eventually and the public unaware if the situation was something to do with cross-contamination at Disney Springs. The other side of the coin is that people often see Disney, the name and company, and go to sue because of that.

 

[DaviVascaino]

It's not about siding with anyone. You really do want actual investigation to go through. I'm not sure if you were in the thread many months ago or read what happened but there was absolutely discrepancies with the family's stories, there were things that didn't make logical sense at all. Poor guest or not it doesn't mean that an entity is responsible on the basis of something happening to that guest (whatever that may be). Hopper's point is what most of us talked about months ago--that an investigation really needs to trace the steps of her and go through everything. That should happen regardless of who it is.

But I definitely agree the tactics Disney is using are weak with the Disney+ angle and so thin of an excuse to use. It's clever but not morally right IMO.



___
In my area we're dealing with a very disturbing situation of food tampering in disgusting ways by an ex-employee of a local company with 3 locations. It was found out by the person posting a video of themselves doing what they were doing on the internet and talking about it (the FBI was involved doing most of the investigation along with the health department). They investigated and narrowed down the timeline of potentially impacted people who experienced food poisoning as well as emotional distress. Lawsuits filed in against the company for their lack of scrutiny in hiring practices, and "breached an implied warranty its food would be safe" among other things.

The incidents (presumed to be more than 20 separate times) happened back in early April to mid-April and had to be narrowed down via investigation as the original dates included into late March. The location where the incident occurred just closed down last weekend, they couldn't stay open with the lawsuits mounting, which at that time were about 10. Since then there's been more and now 21 lawsuits are in play and includes local and out of state individuals. I said it from the beginning of the lawsuits filing in this will probably bankrupt the company (which owns what used to be all 3 locations in our area) which is unfortunate because we go to it (a different location than the ground zero) for dessert and coffee and they have pretty good food too.

The company contends "it did not know that (he) was allegedly “secretly and criminally” contaminating the food. Once it was discovered, the restaurant terminated his employment." They also said the person's "alleged actions were outside his scope of employment." The person who did this stuff is charged with "22 counts of criminal threat for allegedly adulterating or contaminating food and one count of criminal damage" The criminal damage is because they damaged restaurant equipment while carrying on their acts.

I've been torn on how I feel about this because I don't want the restaurant to go out of business but in this case there may be enough to show at least shared negligence. I haven't been back to the restaurant since this happened and I had eaten there (at a different location) only a few days after the last incident is presumed to have occurred. Psychologically it's been hard to even think about going back even though the person is in jail and has been.


___
Ultimately the truth is you're more likely to actually find out what happened, more likely to have the party responsible OR shared responsibility assessed if that is prudent when it's a small to medium sized company. Larger companies may settle just to settle and doesn't actually address fault. Disney does and has settled in the past with undisclosed details leading the public to not have the full picture. I could see this settling eventually and the public unaware if the situation was something to do with cross-contamination at Disney Springs. The other side of the coin is that people often see Disney, the name and company, and go to sue because of that.

The fact Disney used a ridiculous tactic to get away of this (totally unrelated to the accident itself), tells you what their intentions are.

They did not defend themselves on the basis of investigation, that is my point. So yes, unless Disney defends themselves with actual data from the accident itself, this tactic is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The fact Disney used a ridiculous tactic to get away of this (totally unrelated to the accident itself), tells you what their intentions are.

They did not defend themselves on the basis of investigation, that is my point. So yes, unless Disney defends themselves with actual data from the accident itself, this tactic is absolutely ridiculous.

To which I wasn't disagreeing. I was discussing your "Sure, let's side with the multibillionaire company vs the poor guest"

If you're going to view it that way it makes it sound like you're not interested in what actually happened, basically doing what Disney is doing, seeing the clout a large company has and that's that. Most posters were wanting to actually know where did this happen, did it happen like they said, which restaurant (because she visited Planet Hollywood as well) could have been the place it occurred, etc. If you're caring about food allergies and cross contamination you'd want to get to the bottom of that part. Neither party IMO is really addressing that part, hence my comment about both the name and people suing due to it and Disney's weak excuse.

If the incident occurred at a shopping mall without the name Disney attached to it, it's unlikely the individuals would have thought to sue Disney. More than likely you'd go after the restaurant themselves regardless of who owns the building and leases it. AND it's more than likely you'd actually get a better investigation out of it too.

 

[DaviVascaino]

To which I wasn't disagreeing. I was discussing your "Sure, let's side with the multibillionaire company vs the poor guest"

If you're going to view it that way it makes it sound like you're not interested in what actually happened, basically doing what Disney is doing, seeing the clout a large company has and that's that. Most posters were wanting to actually know where did this happen, did it happen like they said, which restaurant (because she visited Planet Hollywood as well) could have been the place it occurred, etc. If you're caring about food allergies and cross contamination you'd want to get to the bottom of that part. Neither party IMO is really addressing that part, hence my comment about both the name and people suing due to it and Disney's weak excuse.

If the incident occurred at a shopping mall without the name Disney attached to it, it's unlikely the individuals would have thought to sue Disney. More than likely you'd go after the restaurant themselves regardless of who owns the building and leases it. AND it's more than likely you'd actually get a better investigation out of it too.

I was replying to the user who was celebrating the fact Disney had "the best of the best" lawyers and used a ridiculous tactic to get out of this mess without addressing the main issue.

That is my point.

I hope the judge let this go to trial, and everyone has the opportunity to defend themselves, including Disney. Let the jury decide. Disney is trying to get out of this, it is clear. So yes, I want to know what really happened.

 

[Keladry84]

I wonder if they are using this tactic simply as a way of testing how far their terms/restrictions on how products from one part of the company apply to components of a different branch of the company - so basically just using a random lawsuit that came up to test this, but actually having their real/true response prepared for after this defense is tried in court.

Looking at what they are saying regarding Disney+ terms though, if this defense were to be held up as valid, it would have extreme far-reaching consequences for consumers......as nobody would be able to bring a lawsuit against a company anymore just because they used x product once 5 years ago.....

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I was replying to the user who was celebrating the fact Disney had "the best of the best" lawyers and used a ridiculous tactic to get out of this mess without addressing the main issue.

That is my point.

I hope the judge let this go to trial, and everyone has the opportunity to defend themselves, including Disney. Let the jury decide. Disney is trying to get out of this, it is clear. So yes, I want to know what really happened.

I didn't read it as they were celebrating, it's stating the truth as far as having the best lawyers. Disney is well used to being sued and sued for all sorts of reasons many are frivolous, few of these lawsuits get far into court for these reasons and obviously some are not frivolous at all. I took their comment to mean you've got to really have your ducks in a row if you're expecting to go far enough into a lawsuit which many aren't.

I also didn't read their comment as celebrating their tactics either, again just stating what was going on, not championing Disney for doing so. They even said it was a strange angle for Disney to be going on (the Disney+/arbitration agreement) and then positioned what reasons that could be for.

It certainly does feel out of left field for Disney to use Disney+ stuff here but stating that doesn't mean you agree with Disney using it. I get now that you felt that's what they were doing but I definitely didn't read it that way.

 

[Suger Mag]

you pay lawyers to do what they need to to get a ruling in your favor. If someone signed a contract that makes them ineligible to sue you... and they sue you, then you would be foolish not to try to use that in your defense. I am sure this will be one of many tactics that are used to get the suit dismissed.

Disney does not own Raglan Rd. they are being sued because the lawyers for the family are ALSO using any angle they possibly can, no matter how skimpy to get satisfaction. of course the DIsney pockets are a lot deeper than the deep pockets of the actual owners

 

[loislane]

I look at it a bit differently. Disney *could* argue it does not own/operate the restaurant and is not liable and that the suit should be dismissed because, as filed, it names both parties. That would force the plaintiff to refile a new suit that does not name Disney.

What Disney's lawyers have filed is a motion to move the case to arbitration - using the Disney+ and ticket terms and conditions as grounds for that. Obviously, arbitration gives more control because the parties involved agree on any settlement rather than leaving it up to a judge - because with a judge that can work for OR against any of the parties.

I'm not a lawyer, but I would also assume arbitration is less costly of a process than a lawsuit. Morality aside, Disney is doing what *any* business in this situation would do.

But a push to arbitrate rather than a flat out motion to dismiss (which may come down the road) indicates that at least at present, Disney is possibly open to making some reparations.

 

[lanejudy]

I expect it's largely a tactic to extend time for a more logical defense (or request for severance or dismissal). That requires investigation which requires time. I'm non lawyer but my understanding is there are timelines involved. Disney may have been up against a deadline to file a response -- so they did just that, a response that will buy them a little more time for the investigation.

 

[HopperFan]

This article should be available: https://www.disboards.com/threads/dis-shareholders-and-stock-info-only.3881254/post-65669537

NY Post?

I wonder if they are using this tactic simply as a way of testing how far their terms/restrictions on how products from one part of the company apply to components of a different branch of the company - so basically just using a random lawsuit that came up to test this, but actually having their real/true response prepared for after this defense is tried in court.

Looking at what they are saying regarding Disney+ terms though, if this defense were to be held up as valid, it would have extreme far-reaching consequences for consumers......as nobody would be able to bring a lawsuit against a company anymore just because they used x product once 5 years ago.....

Yeah could be a component but I still think it is just a stall tactic to drag this out until they are ready or until husband drops the Disney party.

I mean if you apply to DAS you must accept you can not take legal action if you don't like the answer. We are such a litigious society that I think most companies will begin the fine print to prevent lawsuits. I can't blame them.

I look at it a bit differently. Disney *could* argue it does not own/operate the restaurant and is not liable and that the suit should be dismissed because, as filed, it names both parties. That would force the plaintiff to refile a new suit that does not name Disney.

What Disney's lawyers have filed is a motion to move the case to arbitration - using the Disney+ and ticket terms and conditions as grounds for that. Obviously, arbitration gives more control because the parties involved agree on any settlement rather than leaving it up to a judge - because with a judge that can work for OR against any of the parties.

I'm not a lawyer, but I would also assume arbitration is less costly of a process than a lawsuit. Morality aside, Disney is doing what *any* business in this situation would do.

But a push to arbitrate rather than a flat out motion to dismiss (which may come down the road) indicates that at least at present, Disney is possibly open to making some reparations.

Oh I think that will be their final plan because ultimately IF it is proven that Raglan is responsible, Disney is not. They are a landlord. But in the mean time best to use all angles.

I expect it's largely a tactic to extend time for a more logical defense (or request for severance or dismissal). That requires investigation which requires time. I'm non lawyer but my understanding is there are timelines involved. Disney may have been up against a deadline to file a response -- so they did just that, a response that will buy them a little more time for the investigation.

1000% this.

 

[0FF TO NEVERLAND]

Disney is the landlord of the restaurant. They don't control the restaurant. They should be suing whoever actually owns the restaurant ( Not sure if they are ) Either way it would need to be proven that they served the person something they shouldn't have had, and proven the person told them they can't have it. Easier said then done without any audio or real proof of that. ( Obviously I believe the family. Someone screwed up in that kitchen )

This is going to end with either a settlement or them losing the case against Disney.

Tragic story, and I hope they find peace in the end when all is said and done

 

[TwoMisfits]

NY Post?


Yeah could be a component but I still think it is just a stall tactic to drag this out until they are ready or until husband drops the Disney party.

I mean if you apply to DAS you must accept you can not take legal action if you don't like the answer. We are such a litigious society that I think most companies will begin the fine print to prevent lawsuits. I can't blame them.


Oh I think that will be their final plan because ultimately IF it is proven that Raglan is responsible, Disney is not. They are a landlord. But in the mean time best to use all angles.



1000% this.

There are cases where landlords are completely liable for their tenant's actions.
The circumstances of this case and Raglan's potential past issues with allergic reactions may in fact bring liability directly on to Disney. So, they seem to be pulling out all the stops.
If this ends up with a jury, trying the D+ move is gonna come back to haunt Disney, so I expect a settlement is now coming since this hit the press.