11mo ago

Disney gives up on trying to use Disney Plus excuse to settle a wrongful death lawsuit

www.theverge.com

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.”

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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.
- 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.
  
  They'll set this precedent eventually. It will only take a few tries and especially against someone who cant fight back.
- 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.
- 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.
- There was a heavily implied “THIS TIME” at the end of that statement.
"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."
Arbitration is an abomination, abused to quash the rights of regular people who could hardly afford to take a stand against the big guy in the first place.
That a person can sign away their legal rights at all is a miscarriage of justice.
- Yeah that's basically "slavery is okay if you sign a contract first". Should be self evidently wrong.
  
  I mean in the US it's currently "slavery is okay if you get thrown in jail first".
  So it's unfortunately not that big of a leap in their logic
- Arbitration, generally, is not a bad idea. It's less formal and usually less expensive when you have a disagreement. It really is designed for, say, two friends who are going into business together and want to keep things friendly while giving each other the ability to seek an external arbitor.
  However, it's our late stage capitalism that has made forced arbitration an abomination, with corporations seeking to limit their liability by making it unprofitable for individuals to seek legal remedies against very large corporations. Corporations that have the legal equivalent of nukes verses the average customer who has a peashooter.
  I'm at the point whenever I see these clauses to snail mail then my own terms and if they don't react, I assume that my terms were accepted. I've been doing this now for the last few years and have yet to have a company shut off my service or reply back.
  
  snail mail then my own terms and if they don’t react, I assume that my terms were accepted.
  I'm pretty sure you haven't run this strategy by a lawyer. If you've actively agreed to their terms and they haven't responded to your counter terms.... How do you imagine a court is going to interpret that?
  
  However, it’s our late stage capitalism
  It's not capitalism. It's rent-seeking, which is what came before capitalism. The "Free Market" that Adam Smith talked about wasn't a market free from regulations, it was a market free from economic rents, free from monopolies, etc. The big problems we're seeing now aren't because we have too much capitalism, it's because the capitalism we have is shifting more towards rent-seeking, monopolies, artificial scarcity, etc. It's basically feudalism. In a proper capitalist system you have competition. That's the "free market". If someone doesn't like the decisions a business is making, they'll switch to another one.
  Companies can only get away with the kinds of things Disney tries when they don't have to worry about competition. In other words, it's no longer a capitalist system, it's a rent-seeking business. Disney is built around its intellectual property, and IP is nothing but rent-seeking. Nobody can compete with Disney and make a better Star Wars movie because Disney owns the rights to anything Star Wars related.
  
  Do you sent via certified mail or something else that has proof of receipt, and how do you decide who at the company to send it to?
- Arbitration is fine.
  Forced arbitration is the problem.
- In most places they can't.
  EULAs do not override local laws.
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
- 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.
  
  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.
  
  Yeah, maybe. It definitely wasn't for a selfless reason
- 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.
- Yes. Not sure why you deleted this. It's just true.
we decided to waive our right to arbitration
Fuuuuck you with an umbrella. You didn't have that right, you just used that bullshit idea to save yourself from rightful consequences. You only stopped that idea after the massive backlash, as always. You don't get to act like the good guy uere., fuck you.
I can't wait for Disney to go bankrupt and be split up in twenty normal entertainment companies
- Do you have some reason why you think they will be bankrupt and/or split up?
  I wouldn't hold my breath for a bankruptcy - Disney has Gross profits of ~30 Billion a year and net profits of ~2-5 Billion a year. Even if their lawyers become completely incompetent and allow them to be sued for max penalties every month of the year, it wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket.
  
  The parks have been running at a loss and they've been spending like crazy on acquisitions and running all said acquisitions into the ground
  
  I met a shitposter from modern social media,
  Who asked with a frown, wrinkle lip
  And sneer of cold contempt:
  "Do you have some reason why you think
  This company with vast amounts of these
  stamped lifeless things
  Will go bankrupt and/or split up?"
  But regardless of all the corp-simping,
  In the future, only these words survive.
  "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
  Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
  Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
  The lone and level sands stretch far away."
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".
- 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 think they realized that this is the kind of case that could affect arbitration laws if pushed up in appellate courts.
"We've decided" lol. Keep telling yourselves that
- “Right to arbitration”
lol they still think they have the right to arbitration.
- They could settle out of cout for an amount that they could earn back in under a week. Now they wanna go to court where they'll end up paying more. Get fucked Disney
we’ve decided to waive our right
"we are not wrong, fuck you"
I'm just confused how anyone thought this was a good idea to begin with. Surely the strong public backlash could have been easily anticipated.
- Most of the time, nobody notices.
  
  Most of the time it's not as egregious as trying to use a free trial for streaming to force arbitration for wrongful death at an amusement park. I truly can't imagine any world where this doesn't blow up because it's so outrageous.
- Legal and PR are different departments.
Boycott Disney, the high seas exist if you need to get your fix
- Some of us are old, confused and ignorant when it comes to that sort of (naughty) shenanigans. Is there a "piracy for dummies" somewhere?
  
  Use a VPN device and use strem.io. Or if you want self hosted copies, get a VPN, download qbittorrent, and then hit up 1337x. If you want a free front end, you can setup Jellyfin on an old PC and direct it to your media.
  
  Public wifi + deluge + 1337
  Use at own risk
  
  !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com is a good place to start. Check the megathread / FAQ
"unique circumstances" we got caught and too many people heard about it
Too. Late.
Jesus, this story made me feel so fucking gross. So fucking disgusting what they were trying to do.
I don't advocate the high seas.
But man, a TOS like this makes me glad I didn't watch Andor via Disney+. I certainly don't feel bad about it now.
And to the Disney legalbot, I watched it via a friend, of course.
- I mean this is actually an ethical argument to be pro piracy.
  Trying to use the terms of service for a streaming service in order to sweep a death under the rug is completely insane and no one should give money to company like that.
The guy lost his wife. Fuck Disney for trying this shit.
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.
For a company that pushes so hard to have family friendly image, they had to pull this ridiculous stunt.
- Good luck. They own a lot of stuff.
  
  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 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.
- Some kind of legal basilisk where once it sees you, you no longer have any rights ever...
- 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.
I wonder if anyone cancels their Disney+ over this. I know I would if I had it.
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.
  
  The franchise isn't what it was. A good show or movie doesn't mean they haven't ruined a premier franchise.
  
  And Ahsoka. And Andor. And The Mandalorian.
Insane that there was no one from Disney side who did not try to stop this in the first place. Don't mind the empathy, nobody saw this as a bad move for their image? Unless they were being sued for 100+ M I don't see how this made sense financially for them.
And this terrible dry response from them, insane.
- Lawyers are not PR people, its not surprising they would try any avenue to save the company money.
  Rest assured that if this hadn't become a big news story they would have got away with it too, as no random citizen has the means to force them to do anything, especially when it comes to the courts.
Fuck Disney!
Remember that south park episode, The human cent-iPad. Yeah.
- I was thinking about the simpsons were marge is reading the letter that says by reading it allowed you waive all rights in perpetuity or something.
For now ...
I wonder how they concluded this "welp it was worth a try, good job team"
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.
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