Rider Liability Law

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Oct Wed 17, 2007 10:59 pm

Jacca5660 wrote:I live in Tennessee and have a friend that makes you sign a disclaimer to go in his pool. After everything you hear about, I don't blame him.

Holy cow. That's definitely a sign things are more than a little out of control. I remember in high school one of my teachers telling me about a trip to Chicago she went on with her husband (who was at a conference), and walking around being touristy she got a blister on her foot. So, seeing as it was a fairly nice hotel she was at, she went to the concierge desk while she was waiting for him to finish his meetings for the day, and asked if she could get a band-aid. They told her no because they "couldn't take responsibility for her medical treatment". This was ... geez, gotta be 11-12 years ago, too (wow I feel old now...).

I can't understand a legal system that supports people who wander around thinking "gee I'm gonna stand up on the roller coaster, even though it says repeatedly not to, and defies all common sense to do it in the first place". Of course then there's people who are just trying to make a buck, like the woman who sued for damage to her ear drums (I think it was), in the hydrolaters at the Living Seas, because they 'went down too quickly'.

Post by **js3901** » Oct Wed 17, 2007 11:55 pm

DisBeamer wrote: Of course then there's people who are just trying to make a buck, like the woman who sued for damage to her ear drums (I think it was), in the hydrolaters at the Living Seas, because they 'went down too quickly'.

wait, hold the phone.. what the...? when was this? I've heard of stupid lawsuits before, but when was this? I don't rememver hearing about this one...

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Oct Thu 18, 2007 12:07 am

I heard about it several years ago. In retrospect, I actually don't know if it's an Disney urban legend or not, though I do remember reading several articles about it. They used to (and maybe still do?) mention it on the Backstage Magic tour but who knows where the CMs heard it. I'll see if I can find any of the original stuff I read about it.

Edit: A (brief) search fails to turn up anything other than people mentioning they heard it on the tour, and people asking if it's true. It's going on ... at least 5 years since I first heard about it, and someone I saw online mentioned hearing it on a tour in 1997. One would hope it's just a legend then, and that no one is really that stupid.

Post by **js3901** » Oct Thu 18, 2007 1:00 am

DisBeamer wrote:I heard about it several years ago. In retrospect, I actually don't know if it's an Disney urban legend or not, though I do remember reading several articles about it. They used to (and maybe still do?) mention it on the Backstage Magic tour but who knows where the CMs heard it. I'll see if I can find any of the original stuff I read about it.

Edit: A (brief) search fails to turn up anything other than people mentioning they heard it on the tour, and people asking if it's true. It's going on ... at least 5 years since I first heard about it, and someone I saw online mentioned hearing it on a tour in 1997. One would hope it's just a legend then, and that no one is really that stupid.

I hope it's just a CM ad-libbing or something on the tour. If this were true, I think I'd have to pack up and move to some isolated island away from civilization. The proverbial gene pool is too far gone for just a little chlorine. I think we'd need to pull a 20K Leagues at WDW, and fill it in... start over

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Oct Thu 18, 2007 2:20 am

So far (searching on break) I've only found references to people who've heard the stories from various CMs or discussed on podcasts, and all in varying time frames (I think I first heard about it about 7 years ago, but there are older and newer refs to it), so the urban legend theory is looking better. It's somewhat surprising to me so many people would have heard it from CMs if it's fake, though, since adlibbing, especially on tours, seems to be a no-no (thus why the fun police come along and make people stop improvising on the Jungle Cruise every now and then).

I have found a number of legal articles referencing a couple who decided to play bumper cars on the Grand Prix raceway, the boyfriend hitting his girlfriend's car near the unloading part, and they were 'injured' and sued - and Disney had to pay even though the guy was found 85% responsible. Messed up. One of many links

dwellsbct · Post by **dwellsbct** » Oct Sun 21, 2007 8:57 am

Florida has WAY too many frivilous law suits. A rule like this would be great!

Jacca5660 · Post by **Jacca5660** » Oct Sun 21, 2007 9:11 am

I've been reading how everybody feels there are too many frivolous law suits. I was watching the news the other night. There was a report about a study that started in 1964 and ended in 2005. The report said that nation wide only 3% of law suits in the time period nation wide where frivolous law suits. It also went on to say that public impression was that all most 70% of law suits were frivolous.
It went on to say that one of the biggest factors for this difference of reality and impression was the lobbing of the insurance industry!

casrin · Post by **casrin** » Oct Sun 21, 2007 2:39 pm

I was at Cedar Point in Ohio yesterday for a coaster enthusiast event. We were talking with one of the ride ops at Raptor about the VIP program that Cedar Point has. For $350 per person, you can basically do "whatever you want" in the park, with a host along with you. That means you can bypass the lines to ride in whatever seat, and get the best seats at their shows. Stuff like that.

Joking around, I asked, "Does that mean for $350, they'll give me a better, fittable seatbelt on Millennium Force so I can ride it?" See, there's this whole multi-year controversy at that coaster because they changed the belts after a fatal accident at a different park but with a coaster made by the same company. The ride op snickered at my joking efforts of getting around the system and told us a story about a guest trying to bribe the ride op with a $100 bill at Millennium Force so that the ride op wouldn't bother with noticing the rider was too big for it and that his seat belt wouldn't buckle.

Wow. Yet another case of why a law like that should be in place!