So Disney had an arbitration clause in a eula that a user agreed to when they signed up for a streaming trial service and never ended up subscribing. When he died of food poisoning at a restaurant at one of Disney’s amusement parks, his widow looked to be unable to sue the park over it, because he had agreed to that eula by signing up a couple years before.
It was generally perceived that the clause would have been enforceable in that fucked up situation, but Disney backed off when the word got out that the lawyers in the trial were pushing that argument, and they waived the clause. But in that instance, it was never actually ruled on, and many people seemed to think that it was going to be enforced. That’s how fucked the system is when it comes to these clauses.
Disney hoped the clause would be enforceable. At least part of the reason Disney settled out of court was because they didn’t want to challenge that assumption.
You can put whatever clauses you want in a contract. The law still trumps those contracts if it ever comes to enforceability.
I know that story. It’s a lot more nuanced than that.
Thing is, Disney barely had anything to do with the restaurant itself (they’re basically the restaurant’s landowner). And the only thing on which they could attack Disney was to point that the restaurant had a description on Disney’s website… which is part of Disney online services, and subject to their terms of services.
So yeah, grasping at a clause from an old Disney+ subscription is bullshit, but the claim honestly did not make a lot of sense to begin with. The restaurant itself should have been sued to hell, even more so because apparently they reinstated they were allergy compliant several times when asked.
You aren’t wrong, but the usage of the clause the way it was being used was definitely beyond the pale. I don’t think Disney was liable for the restaurants malfeasance, but that lack of responsibility should have rested on the facts of the association or lack thereof, not on some bullshit eula clause for an unrelated product.
It wasn’t as unrelated as it might appear. Firstly, they used their D+ account to make their Disney account. Secondly, the whole point of that argument was that in the Disney account EULA, the relevant one, there is an arbitration clause. They only brought up the D+ account in passing because it has the same clause, emphasizing that they had to read and agree to the clause twice, and if they didn’t catch it it’s not Disney’s fault they lied about reading it. They basically said “look, this is an issue regarding the Disney account, and they said right here they read and understood the terms that include arbitration. And here, they read and agreed to the exact same terms a few months earlier on D+. This shouldn’t be any surprise if they were truthful when they claimed to have read it.”
Disclaimer, arbitration clauses are bullshit and need to be reworked/eliminated as they are generally very anticonsumer and I don’t think it’s good that they have that clause. But accepting that this exists, Disney didn’t really do anything particularly scummy.
So Disney had an arbitration clause in a eula that a user agreed to when they signed up for a streaming trial service and never ended up subscribing. When he died of food poisoning at a restaurant at one of Disney’s amusement parks, his widow looked to be unable to sue the park over it, because he had agreed to that eula by signing up a couple years before.
It was generally perceived that the clause would have been enforceable in that fucked up situation, but Disney backed off when the word got out that the lawyers in the trial were pushing that argument, and they waived the clause. But in that instance, it was never actually ruled on, and many people seemed to think that it was going to be enforced. That’s how fucked the system is when it comes to these clauses.
Disney hoped the clause would be enforceable. At least part of the reason Disney settled out of court was because they didn’t want to challenge that assumption.
You can put whatever clauses you want in a contract. The law still trumps those contracts if it ever comes to enforceability.
I know that story. It’s a lot more nuanced than that.
Thing is, Disney barely had anything to do with the restaurant itself (they’re basically the restaurant’s landowner). And the only thing on which they could attack Disney was to point that the restaurant had a description on Disney’s website… which is part of Disney online services, and subject to their terms of services.
So yeah, grasping at a clause from an old Disney+ subscription is bullshit, but the claim honestly did not make a lot of sense to begin with. The restaurant itself should have been sued to hell, even more so because apparently they reinstated they were allergy compliant several times when asked.
https://youtu.be/hiDr6-Z72XU
You aren’t wrong, but the usage of the clause the way it was being used was definitely beyond the pale. I don’t think Disney was liable for the restaurants malfeasance, but that lack of responsibility should have rested on the facts of the association or lack thereof, not on some bullshit eula clause for an unrelated product.
It wasn’t as unrelated as it might appear. Firstly, they used their D+ account to make their Disney account. Secondly, the whole point of that argument was that in the Disney account EULA, the relevant one, there is an arbitration clause. They only brought up the D+ account in passing because it has the same clause, emphasizing that they had to read and agree to the clause twice, and if they didn’t catch it it’s not Disney’s fault they lied about reading it. They basically said “look, this is an issue regarding the Disney account, and they said right here they read and understood the terms that include arbitration. And here, they read and agreed to the exact same terms a few months earlier on D+. This shouldn’t be any surprise if they were truthful when they claimed to have read it.”
Disclaimer, arbitration clauses are bullshit and need to be reworked/eliminated as they are generally very anticonsumer and I don’t think it’s good that they have that clause. But accepting that this exists, Disney didn’t really do anything particularly scummy.
Yeah, I can agree with that.
Disney backed off because they feared it wouldn’t be ruled applicable and didn’t want to create that precedent.