The Walt Disney Company is a massive corporation that employs hundreds of thousands of people, and Walt Disney World is a huge Resort that welcomes millions of visitors per year. Due to this, Disney is constantly dealing with lawsuits filed by Guests who visited The Most Magical Place on Earth. Guests will sue for various things and sometimes Disney will quietly settle and pay medical expenses and other times the cases are dropped as Disney proves they are not close to being at fault.
Recently, a woman filed a lawsuit against The House of Mouse for a fall that she took while visiting Disney’s BoardWalk. The woman claims that the injury happened in October 2020 — just a few months after Walt Disney World Resort reopened after its pandemic closure — but she filed the lawsuit earlier this year with the Orange County Court.
Disney’s BoardWalk can be found in the EPCOT resort area and can take Guests to both EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. The BoardWalk is home to Disney’s BoardWalk Inn, a number of delicious restaurants like Flying Fish Café, and fun activities for families. Guests can also walk around Crescent Lake and get to Disney’s Yacht Club and the Beach Club.
According to the defendant’s lawsuit:
On or about October 19, 2020, the Plaintiff was an invitee at the aforementioned Boardwalk Resort owned, managed, controlled and/or maintained by Defendant when Plaintiff tripped and fell over decaying woods beams and uneven walking surface where the wooden boardwalk met the concrete walkway.
As a direct and proximate result of the Defendant’s breach of its duties, [the Plaintiff] suffered bodily injury and resulting pain and suffering, disability, disfigurement, aggravation of a pre-existing condition, mental anguish, loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life, expense of hospitalization, medical and nursing care and treatment, loss of earnings, and loss of ability to earn money. The losses are either permanent or continuing and Plaintiff shall suffer the losses in the future.
The plaintiff is suing Disney Vacation Club Management and claiming negligence on DVC Management’s part. The plaintiff claims that the company was negligent in the following ways:
a. Creating the condition which caused Plaintiff’s injury;
b. Failing to timely and properly inspect its property for potentially dangerous or
unsafe conditions, including the one previously alleged; and
c. Failing to warn the Plaintiff of an unreasonably dangerous condition;
d. Failing to exercise reasonable care in the maintenance, inspection, repair, or
warning of the premises;
e. Failing to provide adequate and reasonable maintenance of the property,
including but not limited to any fixtures;
f. Failing to provide proper lighting on the subject premises;
g. Failing to provide reasonably safe premises in other ways which may be
determined through discovery.
The woman and Disney Vacation Club Management are still currently in litigation on the lawsuit.
This is not the first injury lawsuit filed recently against Disney. A woman slipped and fell at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort in 2020 and died of blunt force trauma, and her cousin is suing Disney. Another family filed a lawsuit on behalf of their young son, who injured his hand on a metal sign at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports and had to have several fingers amputated.
Another woman who is suing Disney claims that she went down a Disney World hotel slide, hit the bottom of the pool, and now suffers injuries that will last the rest of her life. A different woman has decided to sue Disney, claiming she was injured when an electric scooter ran into her while she was in a Park. Anyone can rent a scooter at a Disney Park, so scooter injury lawsuits are not all that uncommon.
Disney’s practice is to not comment on pending litigation.
