Arbitrary

File under: Apparently, all publicity is good publicity.

In October of last year, Dr. Kanokporn Tangsuan and members of her family ate at the Raglan Road Irish Pub, which is part of the Disney World resort. Because Dr. Tangsuan was allergic to both dairy and nuts, she and her husband attempted several times to ensure that her dishes would not include those ingredients, and were supposedly assured that they wouldn't. Well, they did, and Dr. Tangsuan died from “anaphylaxis due to elevated levels of dairy and nut in her system.” Her husband, Jeffrey Piccolo, is suing Disney Parks and Resorts for wrongful death, and is seeking other damages.

The Walt Disney Company is requesting that the case be dismissed, claiming that Mr. Piccolo is bound by the arbitration clauses he agreed to when signing up for a free Disney+ subscription, which was subsequently allowed to lapse, and using a Disney-owned website to buy Epcot tickets earlier in 2023. Accordingly, his suit is in violation of his agreement with the company.

This strikes me as a high-risk strategy, namely because it runs the risk of inviting legislation to curb, or even end, the arbitration clauses, given that this case is already in the news, and big corporations are popular with neither Democratic nor Republican voters at this point in time. Both parties may want to deny the other a legislative victory, but their constituents may be willing to look past their own partisanship in the name of sticking it to Big Business. Disney looking to have the case stayed and sent to forced arbitration is also a bad look for them because it hints at the fact that they suspect that they couldn't win in court. Despite the fact that the arbiters are allegedly neutral third parties, everyone understands who selects and pays them.

Either way this comes out, however, it's unlikely that Mr. Piccolo will see a resolution soon. If Disney loses the case, they will certainly appeal, seeking to have the verdict overturned. Although they may decide that cutting a substantial check to Mr. Piccolo is their best option.

In the end, this may be the first bell to toll for the practice of forced arbitration. There's nothing really in it for the public at large (despite what corporate public relations people might say), and if it engenders the sort of sloppiness/negligence that's being alleged in this case, some enterprising politician is going to see the benefit of leading a parade of torches and pitchforks to go after it.

Watching and Waiting

I've allowed my photography to lapse recently, and so I've been going through my old photos. Some of them I haven't seen in years. It's reminded me of how much I enjoyed taking them. Like this one. I wonder how long it took the bird to decide to take the plunge.

Ownership

Slate ran a story about legal proceedings related to the shootings Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, something that had dropped off my radar in the years since it happened. Apparently, the name, image and likeness of Nikolas Cruz, the shooter, are now the property of shooting survivor Anthony Borges. The goal here appears to be to both block any participation by Mr. Cruz, who us now serving a life sentence for the shooting, in interviews, documentaries or other media appearances, and to prevent other people from making any direct mention of Mr. Cruz in commercial media, like documentaries. It's an interesting use of the law. Given that Mr. Cruz and his attorneys agreed to this particular aspect of the settlement with Mr. Borges, it seems unlikely that anyone would be able to challenge it in court.

I understand the motivation and the rationale for this, but I'm a bit dubious about it as a matter of public policy. Not because I think that it's a bad idea, per se; I can see why damnatio memoriae would be sought by survivors of attacks and the families of those killed; people tend to take an interest in those who commit atrocities, and that interest can quickly balloon into fame. Being able to block that would have clear benefits. But the Florida legislature already passed a law removing the previous requirement that death sentences be imposed only by unanimous agreement of the sentencing jury, just so they'll be more easily able to execute the next person who does something like that. If it's understood that hard cases make bad law, setting out to weaponize the law to be used against people who frighten us has a lot of potential to backfire.

While there are a lot of complaints that representative governments don't always do a good job of catering to the desires and needs of the citizens, sometimes the problem is that they can do too good a job of it. A willingness to tweak or change the law every time it doesn't go far enough to satisfy people's outrage leads to laws that are much easier to use as weapons than people might realize. And people tend not to pay much attention when laws are used against people who are easily written off.

Blotted

The Culture Wars make things strange.

I live in a sleepy suburb of Seattle. Almost nothing happens out here. But from time to time, I'll be online, and someone will ask "I'm thinking of moving there... is it safe?" And one can tell by the answers which side of the Liberal/Conservative divide that people come down on.

For a certain segment of the online Conservative population, playing up their concerns of crime, and their responses to/preparations for it is a form of virtue signalling. They will list off the things that happen in their neighborhoods, even petty offenses like vandalism, and inform people that they carry mace when walking the dog (even if they make it a point to say they leave their guns at home). Every trip out of doors is a cause to be vigilant and ready.

For me, the Seattle Eastside (those suburbs on that sit East of Lake Washington, like Redmond, where Microsoft is located) are about a safe as your average pre-teen sleepover. Most of the crime out here is an annoyance, Cars are broken into, and occasionally stolen and there's a certain background level of property crime in the service of financing drug habits. When I lived in Chicago and Evanston, on the other hand, a roommate was mugged, a co-worker was raped and I knew more than a few people for whom the sound of gunshots didn't warrant a response. (My car, however, was left alone.) By comparison, crime here is more bothersome than worthy of concern. But then, I don't pine for the 1970s. Mainly because I realize that I don't have an accurate picture of the 1970s... after all, I was in grade school for most of it. It had its own problems, but internet culture and high levels of partisanship weren't among them.

Concerns over crime mean different things to different people. For some, they're about the collapse of good government (a.k.a., what they remember as draconian punishments for criminals), for others, it's about the inherent wickedness of mankind and the immanent return of the divine to earth. There are, however, those people for whom it's a real, day-to-day, concern. But when you live were I live, those people are few and far between.

You Gonna Eat That?

 A hungry, hungry seagull, perched on the windshield of a pickup truck. hoping to find a way to get some of the driver's leftovers.