It’s been two years since I last visited the Orange County Courthouse to see who’s prosecuting the Mouse at the Halls of Justice. As expected, many of the cases sounded familiar, but there were plenty of new wrinkles.
Disorder in the Court
Here’s what popped out at me:
- Only one case filed over the past 12 months cited an “attraction malfunction.” I suspect additional cases were filed outside the O.C. in more plaintiff-friendly Los Angeles County (probably by wise plaintiffs who first read The People v. Disneyland, but for years attraction-related cases have been decreasing as a percentage of overall lawsuits filed against the park. Credit Disney for making attractions (and their operation) safer than ever before.
- The most common injuries—by far—continue to be from slip-and-fall accidents. Alleged causes include uneven pavement, wet floors at the Emporium and at Redd Rocket’s Pizza Port, and a Mickey & Friends parking lot escalator that stopped working, exposing the unwitting climber to a treacherous safety hazard (a.k.a. stairs).
- Attraction-wise, a three-year-old fell off the zipline at the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail. And an elderly woman, after stowing her walker, stepped onto the moving loading ramp for Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and promptly got her Astro Blasted.
- A woman says she was leaning on a railing at Lugi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters, when the handrail suddenly “opened,” causing her to fall to the ground and breaking her wrist.
- In at least six lawsuits, visitors claim that they contracted Legionnaire’s Disease from bacteria emanating from a Disneyland cooling tower. Public officials confirmed that the tower in question, which is used to treat water for the air conditioning systems, did contain high levels of the bacteria during September and early October of 2017. Disneyland disputes the findings.
- Guests at the Grand Californian warned the hotel that their young son had an extreme dairy allergy, yet during their stay staff gave him a gluten-free bun that contained eggs, causing him to begin vomiting uncontrollably. The boy had to be rushed to the Children’s Hospital, where he was treated for five and a half hours before being released.
According to the suit, “The family eventually arrived back at their room to rest after a harrowing day. The bed linens had been changed. On (the child’s) bed was a signed picture of Mickey Mouse that said ‘get well soon.’ Also, MILK CHOCOLATES had been spread around his bed with confetti. The family was horrified. They had just returned from the hospital after experiencing a reaction that could have killed their son only to find his bed covered with one of his allergens.” - Upon checking in at the Disneyland Hotel, a woman who was eight months pregnant asked the clerk if she could check out a little past the usual 11 a.m. deadline, since her doctor informed her that being forced to rush would be bad for her breathing. She said she was granted permission by staff. But when the checkout time arrived, she was told she had to leave the room in one hour. She immediately suffered shortness of breath, and “extreme and severe emotional distress.” Citing violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act, she is demanding nearly $560,000.
Finally, I also couldn’t resist checking in on the last case I covered for MiceChat—Sarno v. Fite, the battle of the Disneyland social clubs. As you may recall, the leader of the White Rabbits Social Club heard some unsavory news about the “battalion chief” of the Main Street Fire Station 55 group and warned him that if he failed to retreat, he would expose his dirty laundry.
Initially, I thought the case sounded borderline frivolous. I figured both sides would quickly run out of money and the case would evaporate into the ether. Yet here we are, nearly 30 months later, and the case continues careening forward. During that time, 800 separate documents have been filed. In recent months, most of the paperwork involves complaints by Fire Chief Sarno accusing Head Rabbit Fite of delaying or downright ignoring his requests for discovery, or that Fite’s responses were “not code compliant and consisted mainly of inappropriate boilerplate.”
The jury trial is tentatively set to begin on July 13, 2020. If miraculously, this circus ever makes it to trial, I want a front-row seat.
55ers Book Tour
To promote my recent book The 55ers: The Pioneers Who Settled Disneyland, I’ll be giving a series of free multimedia presentations on the park’s first employees. (I’ll also put the word out to see if any of the originals would like to join me, but no promises!)
- Sunday March 1 at 2 pm at the Katie Wheeler Library, 13109 Old Myford Rd., Irvine, CA
- Saturday March 7 at 10 am at the Donald Dungan Library, 1855 Park Ave., Costa Mesa, CA
- Sunday April 19 at the Dana Point Library, 33841 Niguel Rd., Dana Point, CA
In addition, I’ll share a unique talk on the Anaheim families who made their homes on the Disneyland site before Disneyland, once only:
- Monday March 16 at 6 pm at the Anaheim Public Library, 500 W. Broadway, Anaheim, CA
I hope you can make it!
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Let’s Hear From You!
What caught your attention in our Disneyland legal update? How much of this is guests being opportunistic and how much Disney’s liability? Interested in joining me for any of my free presentations this week? I’d love to see you!
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