What Exactly Are We Agreeing To? Discussing the Disney+ Lawsuit

Maybe our Subscriptions are not the bee’s knees that we thought they were.

This post will walk through Disney+’s recent argument in its Wrongful death lawsuit and determine whether we should prepare to cancel our subscription.

The real question is, what the f*ck is going on with Disney + and Walt Disney Parks (Disney)? Recently, Disney asked a Florida court to dismiss a lawsuit brought against it by Jeffrey Piccolo, on behalf of his wife, Kanokporn Tangsuan, for wrongful death. Thankfully, Disney recently dropped its claim that the Disney+ subscription was viable arbitration, but would Disney have ever survived with this argument?

The Disney lawsuit started in 2023, with Plaintiffs Jeffrey Piccolo and his wife Kanokporn Tangsuan, who visited Raglan Road at one of the Disney dining destinations. Tangsuan had food allergies and as such, Tangsuan and Piccolo did the due diligence necessary to find Raglan Road, claiming that accommodation of persons with food allergies was a top priority, even going as far as to advertise that people with food allergies could speak with a chef or special diets trained Cast Member before placing an order. Even with all of those steps that the Plaintiffs took, shortly after eating her food, Tangsuan’s nightmares came to fruition. She suffered an acute allergic reaction, resulting in her death. The medical examiner’s investigation determined it was anaphylaxis due to elevated levels of dairy and nuts in her system. Jeffrey Piccolo filed the wrongful death action against both WDPR and Raglan Road a few months later, in February 2024.

However, that was not the end of the story, in April, 2024, Disney entered its appearance. In Disney’s motion, Disney made what can be considered a preposterous argument that sent shockwaves throughout the news. Disney argued that when Jeffrey Piccolo, individually, signed up for a FREE trial of Disney+ in 2019 or when he bought tickets for Epcot in 2023, he somehow tied his individual capacity to Tangsuan and then to an arbitration agreement buried within terms and conditions within a terms and condition.

It’s one thing to say, okay Piccolo is a life-long Disney+ member, maybe if he then adds Tangsuan onto the account, there may be a legal argument that Tangsuan is consenting to the terms and conditions because she is using the software. However, that is not presented here at all. MAYBE Tangsuan used the account? But does that lead to Tangsuan agreeing to an arbitration? That is a stretch in the legal context because that means ANYONE that uses ANY software unbeknownst to any terms and conditions they probably did not read and did not have access to is governed by the company. Which arguably is not practical. An easy example, pushing this to the extreme, would be, say you sign up for DoorDash and become a dasher; while on a route, you have your significant other in the car and get into an accident, and because you signed up for the “DoorDash Pot o’ Gold Sweepstakes” you individually, agreed to the binding arbitration agreement. Does that mean that if your significant other were to get a third-degree burn in that accident because the DoorDash bag was faulty, does that mean that they are bound by the DoorDash arbitration? That would arguably be insane.

Similarly, even with our current subscription-based economy, I have not found a single person (law student or non-law student) who has read the terms and agreements for streaming services in their entirety. While this does not excuse being bound to the terms and agreement, it would be an absurd precedent to expand an arbitration agreement from an individual to another person regardless of it being a spouse. We are gone from the days when a married couple is viewed as a single person both in everyday life and within legal contexts for every situation. There are some exceptions, such as taxation, where married couples file jointly and are treated as a single taxable unit, and in property law, where a tenancy by the entirety is a form of joint tenancy reserved exclusively for married couples. However, the law explicitly says a married couple is not automatically viewed as a single person for purposes of an arbitration agreement. The Utah Supreme Court addressed this in Goldman v. Sunbrige Healthcare, LLC, where the court found that the wife could not bind her husband to an arbitration agreement that she signed because there was no evidence of agency or authority granted by the husband. Goldman v. Sunbridge Healthcare, LLC. 220 Cal. App. 4th 1160, 164 Cal. Rptr. 3d 11, 14 (2013). Similar to Ellsworth v. American Arbitration Association, where the court ruled that the husband’s participation in contract negotiation did not bind him to the arbitration agreement signed by his wife. Ellsworth v. Am. Arbitration Ass’n, 2006 UT 77, 148 P.3d 983 (Sup. Ct. Utah 2006).

Is this arbitration agreement likely enforceable?

Regardless of various other societal implications of Disney’s argument and legal precedent outside of Florida, none of this is binding in Florida. So, is Disney’s argument enforceable? Probably not. Several cases in Florida state that one spouse cannot bind the other to an arbitration clause simply by virtue of their marital relationship. In Sovereign Healthcare of Tampa, LLC v. Estate of Yarawsky, the court held that the resident was not bound by an arbitration agreement signed by his wife because she only had the authority to sign papers for his admission and medical treatment, not for arbitration agreements. Sovereign Healthcare of Tampa, LLC v. Estate of Yarawsky, 150 So. 3d 873 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2014). This was further addressed in Etheridge v. Palm Garden of Winter Haven, LLC, where the court found that a wife who signed an admissions agreement containing an arbitration provision as the financially responsible party had no authority to bind her husband to the arbitration agreement. Etheridge v. Palm Garden of Winter Haven, LLC, 359 So. 3d 1202 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2022).

So where does that put us now? If this goes through, make sure NOT to visit Disney. I’m just kidding. In all actuality, all of us might be able to sleep a little better at night with our Disney+ subscription before we rush to cancel it.

In Jermaine’s perspective, Disney’s argument is DENIED.

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Till next time, friends, signing off.

Jermaine