This is crazy. Disney is claiming that a wrongful death lawsuit cannot go forward (paraphrasing):
“sorry, your husband signed up to a Disney+ trial a couple of years ago, hence they accepted T&Cs that clearly stated that any dispute about our products should go through arbitration rather than through courts”.
Even if a consumer carefully reads the terms and conditions, how could they reasonably expect the ToS for a video game would affect the terms they are under at a Disney restaurant? That’s fucking nuts.
Future parents: “sorry kids, you cannot play that video game because there is an arbitration clause and one day you might want to visit Disney’s amusement parks.”
I’ve boycotted Disney for over a decade because of how conservative the corp is and how right-wing extremist they are with politics. IIRC Disney financed the campaign of a politician looking to eliminate background checks on firearms. Indeed, the company who entertains kids is happy to fight against basic gun control. So when Disney pulls a dick move like this arbitration clause it just reinforces the idea that boycotting Disney is the right move.
(edit) wow the ups and downs of the votes are interesting. ATM 9 up & 9 down. Can’t help but wonder who are these anti-human people who are happy to lick the corporate boots of Disney… capitalist fanatics disappointed that people would object to arbitration clauses perversely applied so broadly? I have to wonder if loyal Disney employees are following this thread.
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This is a story from months ago, and Disney already announced they dropped the arbitration claim. Not terribly newsworthy two months after it was resolved.
Except that uber took notes.
https://www.lawinc.com/uber-arbitration-clause-lawsuit-mcginty
I mean, Disney didn’t invent this approach. It’s been done before, and is why companies are always trying to get you to sign off on an agreement that binds you to arbitration.
It’s one of the reasons it was so interesting when Valve took a step in the opposite direction recently, and explicitly said they would not do arbitration.
Was it ever tested in court before? I thought Disney dropped it before it could. But uber seems to have so far prevailed in forcing arbitration. From an eats order their daughter agreed to, vs them using uber taxi.
Usually the cases are more clear cut (i.e. arbitration clause is part of agreement directly related to service in question). That part is well established and proven in multiple court cases. The “stretch” Disney tried to pull was an arbitration clause for one service being used to apply to a different service by the same company. That was never proven or disproven in court, as Disney withdrew the motion (and the subsequently settled out of court?)
In terms of it being supported by a court, I suspect it will depend on the court. Depending on how the agreement clause is written and included in a terms of service, one could argue that the agreement is with the company, regardless of what service the consumer is interacting with. I mean, it’s the approach of morally bankrupt weasels, but could certainly see many Trump and Bush appointed judges agreeing with those arguments
If you look through the terms and conditions of everything you use, it will mention arbitration. Literally every single company has added that clause for US citizens. From streaming services and online subscriptions to smart TV’s and even socks. If it’s something you already own, they sent you an email awhile back telling you or they added a new “agree” somewhere along the line.
And I mean every company. If you look through the EULA or ToS of every single game, software, appliance, subscription, product, device, and service you have bought or signed up for (even free services like Discord) there will be an arbitration clause. Some of them will go as far as putting it on the box where it says “if you open this box, you automatically agree to our arbitration clause.” Some companies will put it inside the box saying shit like “if you do not agree, please return this product with X amount of days.” It’s super shady for shit where they throw away the box as they deliver it like refrigerators. But if you’ve bought a refrigerator within the last 5ish years, you’ve already “agreed.”
We’ve all been sleeping on this, but if you read through some of those things you hit “agree” on, you’d be surprised at how many more rights you were signing away than you used to be and thought you were. And it’s only been getting worse.
Everyone seems to be hung up on the Disney trial thing when the person also agreed to the same arbitration clause when they purchased the DW tickets.
That’s the point Disney’s lawyers made, alledgedly
They were just eating dinner and hadn’t used the tickets yet (she died first).
Not the point
heh thats some wild stuff. nobody would reasonably expect that signing the arbitration waiver when agreeing to disney+ would apply to any possible legal dispute with the company period.
