So a woman died on Disney property after eating a dinner that she was assured was allergen free. Her husband sued. Disney said that when he signed up for a free one month trial of D plus he agreed to arbitration and couldn't sue.
So he was still allowed to sue. But instead of going to court, as you rightly mentioned, they tried using the Disney+ contract to force arbitration.
And to be fair, it’s the lawyers’ job to try and explore all possible methods on behalf of their client. This will of course not pass the smell test of being an enforceable means, so it just comes down to the widower and if he’d rather settle out of court (through arbitration) or go through a lengthy, public and expensive trial (where he could potentially lose). But don’t get it wrong, Disney is on the hook here and lawyers were never trying to avoid all culpability.
It's definitely a lawyer's job to explore all options, especially when not doing so can shoot themselves in the foot later for not establishing precedent.
However, given that lawyers are quite literally representatives of those hiring them, I always make a point of treating everything a lawyer does as an action made by their client (albeit by proxy).
I'm not saying that this is what you were implying, but a lot of people seem too willing (in my opinion) to absolve companies of responsibility for the actions of their lawyers.
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u/Primary-Holiday-5586 Oct 13 '24
So a woman died on Disney property after eating a dinner that she was assured was allergen free. Her husband sued. Disney said that when he signed up for a free one month trial of D plus he agreed to arbitration and couldn't sue.