Coaster Lover
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
Yeah, I'm not going to jump to conclusions on this one... the McDonalds Coffee lawsuit (Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants; 1994) is a prime example of how the plaintiff's injuries were real/significant and all the plaintiff really wanted was a $20K settlement to cover medical bills then the lawyers got involved and everything blew up. In that case, the actual incident happened in Feb of 1992 and it didn't go to trial until Aug 1994 (2.5 yrs later), so the timing here is not suspect either. Similarly, in that case, McDonalds had been serving coffee for decades with no lawsuits for the temperature, so we can't take a multi decade history of no cases on the waterslide to be a 100% assurance of safety.
Based on the filing, it seems her injuries were significant (bleeding after riding, taken to a hospital via ambulance) and, if nothing else, should at least be compensated for the hospital bills. But I could see a situation where Disney pushes back and then she gets a lawyer involved and all of a sudden the wording get's a but more "colorful" and the amount they are suing for jumps way up (lawyers like to get paid).
As for how a similar incident hasn't happened before, the deceleration at the end of the slide is based on body position, body size, and the amount of water at the end of the slide. Other than saying people of certain weights can or cannot ride and instructing people on the proper riding position, Disney doesn't have much control over the first two attributes. I wonder if it's possible that the water in the run out was lower/higher than ideal in this case resulting in a more rapid deceleration than anticipated? (just tossing out theories, I'm not familiar enough with the slide to say how feasible that may be).
Based on the filing, it seems her injuries were significant (bleeding after riding, taken to a hospital via ambulance) and, if nothing else, should at least be compensated for the hospital bills. But I could see a situation where Disney pushes back and then she gets a lawyer involved and all of a sudden the wording get's a but more "colorful" and the amount they are suing for jumps way up (lawyers like to get paid).
As for how a similar incident hasn't happened before, the deceleration at the end of the slide is based on body position, body size, and the amount of water at the end of the slide. Other than saying people of certain weights can or cannot ride and instructing people on the proper riding position, Disney doesn't have much control over the first two attributes. I wonder if it's possible that the water in the run out was lower/higher than ideal in this case resulting in a more rapid deceleration than anticipated? (just tossing out theories, I'm not familiar enough with the slide to say how feasible that may be).
