The Happiest Place on Earth
For years, Disney has battled against common carrier* liability for accidents
that occur on its amusement park rides (and lobbied for an
explicit statutory exemption to this liability). It lost this battle six
weeks ago, in Gomez v. The Walt Disney Co. ( in a decision handed down by the California Supreme Court), just in time for a roller coaster crash that injured 15.
It troubles me that families slap down $200-plus/day to visit a place
that lobbies for lax safety standards. I don’t think that people
would eat at restaurants guilty of the same practices.
*Common carrier liability heightens the duty of care that a carrier, such as Disney, owes to riders, where it
“must use the
utmost care and diligence for their safe carriage, must provide
everything necessary for that purpose, and must exercise to that end a
reasonable degree of skill.” Cal. Civ. Code
@nna
July 30, 2005 @ 8:04 pm
hm, roller coasters. i don’t believe they are safe. doesn’t stop me from riding them though.
i might think twice now.
Philip Greenspun
August 5, 2005 @ 4:03 pm
My cousin used to work for Disney as an animator. Just before we got on the Matterhorn ride in Disneyland he told me about a woman who was beheaded on the same ride a few years earlier. The incident was covered in the LA Times but didn’t get much attention overall.
Disney gets a lot of special laws. Claiming that there was a security risk they got Congress to force the FAA to ban airplanes flying over Disney World. They’d been trying to get this done long before 9/11 because they didn’t like the fact that occasionally planes towing advertising banners would fly overhead. It remains legal to fly over any other theme park.