Weird California decision re: Disney

At work today, reading the national legal paper, a decision concerning the woman who allegedly got a brain injury and subsequently died after riding the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland caught my eye. A link to the decision is here: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/californiastatecases/b163651.pdf

The appellate court ruled that Disneyland was a "common carrier." A common carrier usually refers to companies that a person pays to have them travel somewhere (bus, airline, car service, etc.). Being defined as a common carrier is significant because a common carrier has a greater duty to look after the safety of its guests.

The court recognizing that amusement rides don’t actually go anywhere, and realized that the laws concerning common carriers don’t make sense when applied to rides, still held that the statutory definition of common carrier is so broad it applies to companies having amusement rides. Now to some extent, the decision is not a big deal, certainly an amusement park has a duty to protect the safety to its guests. But there are other laws specifically applicable to common carriers such as a common carrier must travel at a reasonable rate of speed, a common carrier must provide a sufficient number of vehicles to all passengers, etc. that make no sense when applied to amusement park rides. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lawyer in California is licking their chops to use this decision against an amusement park in other contexts.

California laws are really screwed up. Well there is always Arnie (or Gary Coleman) to fix it.

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Dippin Dots- ice cream of the future since 1989

In my opinion Common Carrier statues Do and Should apply to amusement park rides. However that's not the 'end all be all ' of the case. What's more important is the nature of the injury. For example if the woman was predisposed to brain injury, whether she knew it or not, would automatically negate any responsibility on Disney's part.

Common Carrier statues are ussually applied to cases involving accidents and injuries sustained by neglegance, a lack of standard saftey measures, poor maintenance, or a lack of visual and verbal precautions. Was that the case here? Every indication is, No. Although I admit I don't know everything about the case yet.

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Kevin Stone
NoLimits Roller Coaster Simulator
http://www.nolimitscoaster.de

But why apply common carrier status? If Disney was negligent in creating or drafting the ride and it led to her injury fine. Why add all these regulations that are meant to apply to buses and airplanes to an amusement park? There are safety regulations applying to rides. If they didn't follow such regulations -they are negligent. Why not use them instead of using regulations that were obviously meant to apply to transportation carriers?

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Dippin Dots- ice cream of the future since 1989

Welcome to the wonderful world of the California Legal System. I can tell you from personal expereince that what the judges decide doesn't always make sense, often ignoring the law as written.

Applying common carrier status to amusement rides could potentially open a ridiculous bag of worms. Now laws regarding the treatment of luggage could be applied to roller coasters. Also, does this mean that escalators are now common carriers.

There's a wide variety of law that applies to common carriers that coulc get quite ridiculous if applied to amusement parks.