Disney tried to force the case into arbitration by citing the agreement on the widower’s Disney Plus trial account.
Disney has now agreed that a wrongful death lawsuit should be decided in court following backlash for initially arguing the case belonged in arbitration because the grieving widower had once signed up for a Disney Plus trial.
“With such unique circumstances as the ones in this case, we believe this situation warrants a sensitive approach to expedite a resolution for the family who have experienced such a painful loss,” chairman of Disney experiences Josh D’Amaro said in a statement to The Verge. “As such, we’ve decided to waive our right to arbitration and have the matter proceed in court.”
Josh D’Amaro said in a statement to The Verge. “As such, we’ve decided to waive our right to arbitration and have the matter proceed in court.”
Sounds to me like they just want to keep that umbrella waiver in the Disney+ agreement rather than have that, rightly, struck down in court. They are very much still working under the assumption that a subscriber clicking “I Agree” to watch The Mandalorian waives any right to trial against any business unit of Disney Corp for any reason.
Absolutely despicable.
There was a heavily implied “THIS TIME” at the end of that statement.
An umbrella arbitration clause like this, if it were argued at court, surely would only be held up for cases related to Disney+. At least one would hope. Having such an agreement cover entirely separate arms of a company is ridiculous.
Arbitration contracts, especially in click-through licenses, are always bullshit and should be universally thrown out.
All unilateral contracts where one side holds all the cards and can arbitrarily dictate or even alter previously agreed to terms should be held to the strictest standards. This includes employment agreements, terms of service, license agreements and so on.
Contracts between equals can be more permissive.
Agreed. It’s pretty telling that none of these corporations would accept an open ended arbitration clause in their dealings with any other corporation.
Arbitration contracts
especially in click-through licensesare always bullshit and should be universally thrown out.There should be no reason why a corporation ahould be able to avoid the justice system for any reason.
I could see very specific cases where arbitration makes sense with a very well defined scope. “Parties agree that disputes over widget quality related to this agreement are to be adjudicated by the Widget Quality Counsel”. The courts are not always the best arbiters for every dispute.
However, what we have now is every corporation finding ways to slide arbitration clauses of global scope into every transaction. That is always bullshit.
If you give an inch, they take a mile. No forced arbitration clauses, anywhere, ever, period.
You agreed to Disneys TOS
Assassins from Disney licking their fingers because they can legally kill you /j
Its the dumbest death you can have in an amusement park, dying because the restaurant didnt labeled their allergies right and that the corporation tries to dismiss it because of an DIGITIAL contract that was made for a digital service.
But this is the bs that you got by applying law so freely.
Yep, exactly.
They’re asserting and graciously waiving a “right” they invented themselves in order to keep that from being challenged in court.
Just this time, because I care about Disney so much, I’m waiving my right to steal from Disney.
They’ll set this precedent eventually. It will only take a few tries and especially against someone who cant fight back.
Yeah, imo they got worried that people would start asking government agencies to make legislation about things like this, so theyd rather backtrack now so they can keep it as part of their TOS.
I wonder how these stupid attempts ever get pass these supposedly smart executives. You have to be pretty stupid to hold someone to a agreement that was over four years before. The idea that you are bound by a contract for a online service after you cancel it is absurd and downright stupid.
This kind of stuff is actually pretty common in lawsuits. You just throw everything at the wall, because sometimes something sticks. It looks heinous in the light of normal human behavior (and you can say they’re awful for not just settling the lawsuit and making the guy go through this), but once they’ve decided to fight it, you can’t really blame the lawyers for doing their jobs finding what they can to fight it with.
I can absolutely blame them for unethical behavior.
Some kind of legal basilisk where once it sees you, you no longer have any rights ever…
A disney SWAT team kicked down my door and scream-asked me at gunpoint if I’d seen the Mandalorian.
I hear it’s been happening a lot.
we’ve decided to waive our right to arbitration
That’s legalese for “We still think that we have that right, we will use it again”.
I think they realized that this is the kind of case that could affect arbitration laws if pushed up in appellate courts.
That’s legalese for “We still think that we have that right, we will use it again”.
Or for “we don’t want this to get invalidated in court - we need to save it so we can intimidate someone else in the future”.
“Just when we have less heat on us and the news doesn’t have everyone so riled up and hating us.”
I will never knowingly hand money to that corporation or their entities ever fucking again.
Good luck. They own a lot of stuff.
Whoowneswhat …
If you don’t step foot on Disneyland or Disneyworld it’s pretty easy to avoid. Just find alternative sources for all their media instead of paying them.
I literally can’t even buy tangerines at the grocery store without giving money to Disney because they printed Mickey or some shit on the bag.
Weird. Where do you live?
USA
“We’ve decided” lol. Keep telling yourselves that
“Right to arbitration”
For a company that pushes so hard to have family friendly image, they had to pull this ridiculous stunt.
I wonder how they concluded this “welp it was worth a try, good job team”
Too. Late.
I fucking hate Disney.
With such unique circumstances as the ones in this case, we believe this situation warrants a sensitive approach
Yeah if they possessed sensitivity they would’ve never tried this. The only reason they changed their mind is public backlash which would’ve been obvious to foresee.
So they’re myopic and insensitive. Also just cruel. It doesn’t matter in the slightest if they could’ve gotten away with this. It’s straight evil to try it.
They said they decided to waive their right to arbitration. They still think that’s their right, fucking sickening.
I think they put it that way because they want to signal how powerful they are while pretending to be ethical
Exactly, i thought of this as a tapping of the holstered guns they’re openly wearing
Yeah, but they’re cap guns in this case. It’s an idiotic legal theory.
deleted by creator
Yes. Not sure why you deleted this. It’s just true.
I deleted it because you already said it in your post :P
I’d say actually the only reason they backed down is because they realized they were going to lose and didn’t want to risk their arbitration clause getting struck down in a court.
Yeah, maybe. It definitely wasn’t for a selfless reason
This was exactly it.
They’ll wait for a case they can win for sure and let court precedent destroy their customers following.
If the reversed happened, it would be a massive win for consumers. The mouse can’t allow that.
That made me so angry!
When this story first came up, an Ars Technica commenter explained that the only thing to do in this scenario is to grieve with the widow, and that it was a ludicrous fight to have. It’s pretty bad for Disney to pretend like they agree with that viewpoint after already putting the widow through more distress.
The guy lost his wife. Fuck Disney for trying this shit.
For now …
Honestly I assumed they were pushing this simply to drag out the proceedings. That would force the widower into a position where they couldn’t afford to continue, ensuring they would take whatever NDA Disney offered for whatever amount.
Disney: Guilty of murdering its resort guests as well as the entire Star Wars franchise.
I mean, I dunno about the entire star wars franchise. Bad Batch and Rebels were pretty great.
And Ahsoka. And Andor. And The Mandalorian.
The franchise isn’t what it was. A good show or movie doesn’t mean they haven’t ruined a premier franchise.
“We got caught by the public, and we want to keep this excuse possible in the future. So we’re dropping it from now so the court doesn’t set a legal precedent that will fuck us over.”