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View Full Version : Jury can hear of changes to Disney ride after death - OC Register, 12/12/06



Darkbeer
12-12-2006, 12:57 PM
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister...le_1380691.php (http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1380691.php)

QuikQuote: A judge ruled Monday that a jury can hear about changes The Walt Disney Co. made to the Indiana Jones Adventure ride after a woman's death from a ruptured brain aneurysm, which her family contends was triggered by the Disneyland attraction she rode on her honeymoon.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James R. Dunn issued his ruling as trial approaches in the case brought by the estate of Cristina Moreno of Spain in September 2001.
According to the suit, the 23-year-old Barcelona woman complained of a severe headache after riding the Indiana Jones Adventure on June 25, 2000. She was hospitalized that evening after losing consciousness and was found to have brain hemorrhaging. She died Sept. 1.

Katlovett
12-12-2006, 01:03 PM
That is a questionable ruling. California Evidence Code section 1151 says:

"1151. When, after the occurrence of an event, remedial or
precautionary measures are taken, which, if taken previously, would
have tended to make the event less likely to occur, evidence of such
subsequent measures is inadmissible to prove negligence or culpable
conduct in connection with the event."

Katprint

Bolivar
12-12-2006, 02:25 PM
Yeah, the reason for that is that you don't want to set up a situation where someone doesn't want to improve safety because doing so will make them look guilty of something.

Katlovett
12-12-2006, 06:42 PM
I can only wonder whether the Disney attorneys, on the one hand, claimed that the ride could not have been designed to be more safe, while Disney management, on the other hand, was changing the ride around. Certainly something must have aggravated the judge into making such a ruling. Remember the Microsoft antitrust case where the Microsoft attorneys insisted that their browser could not be unbundled from their operating system but the judge's clerk was able to do it in about 5 minutes? This was not good for Microsoft's case.

Clients do not always tell you everything, and angry judges seldom rule in your favor.

Niele
12-12-2006, 08:14 PM
I am truly sorry for the woman's death, what a sad occurance. I'm just thinking that people do expenct "fast, turbulent, combining the ups and downs of a roller coaster with jarring jumps, drops and unpredictable movements." on the action rides. I know I do but just never thought about the medical ramifications, hmmmmmm! I wonder if this was a pre-existing condition. It sure makes me want to hug everyone I love right now because we're human and you just never know ... my sincere condolences to the family ...

jcruise86
12-12-2006, 09:05 PM
Interesting thread!
Katlovett (or another lawyer), why do you think the judge allowed something that went against such a well-established principle?

Katlovett
12-13-2006, 08:30 AM
I have nothing to do with that case and have no inside information. However, based on the attorneys quoted in the article and ride description discussions here and elsewhere, there seems to be a dispute whether the ride was changed "to make it more reliable and so that it would last longer" or whether it was smoothed out so that people wouldn't be injured on it anymore (since there was also apparently a history of healthy people being injured.)

I have been involved with cases where secret information was obtained directly from an insider. For example, the brother of a girl who was falsely accusing a schoolteacher of molestation sold us her diary where she had written about her scheme to get piles of money by lying. Another time we bought love letters from the mistress of a widower whose high-earning MD wife had been killed in a freeway accident, where the widower testified that his marriage was great and he should get all the money his wife would have earned for the rest of her life expectancy but his love letters said he was consulting attorneys about filing for divorce, that he wanted to marry his mistress, and that he wished his wife would just die and save him the trouble. (The mistress contacted us because she was angry when he wouldn't actually marry her after his wife died.) It is not impossible that the plaintiff's attorneys have some kind of injury statistics or engineering information from a disgruntled Disney employee; I understand there may be a lot of disgruntled Disney employees out there.

I think the REAL issue that decides the case will be Disney's generic warning signs. One could argue that having the same warning on a ride like Indiana Jones that shakes the bejesus out of you, that you also have on relatively smooth rides like Splash Mountain or the Teacups, fails to provide a truly adequate warning that this ride is different and is really really really violent.

Again, I don't really know anything. Just my specious opinions, here.

Katprint

Bolivar
12-13-2006, 09:09 AM
But I still don't get it. If there is a history of healthy people being injured on the ride, that is important information and should be admitted -- from a disgruntled employee or wherever it came from. I don't see why the fact that the ride was changed is then admissible. If they changed it because of the pattern of injury, well the pattern of injury is important and admissible, but not the fact the ride was changed.

What am I missing?

Katlovett
12-13-2006, 10:08 AM
I tried to find Judge James Dunn's opinion online, but wasn't able to. But often in cases like this, the defendant argues that it is impossible for the design to have been made safer; for example, a kitchen knife manufacturer may argue that the dangerous sharp edge of knife cannot reasonably be eliminated without destroying the function of the knife.

By way of analogy, let's say a person claims their injury resulted from a room having been painted blue. If Disney says, "We had to paint the room blue because it was impossible to paint it any other color" but after the accident Disney paints the room red, then the plaintiff may want to use that fact to show that it would have been possible to paint the room red in the beginning. However the plaintiff is not allowed to use the fact that the room was subsequently painted red, to prove that the room being blue caused their injury. This distinction can be confusing to the jury, and the judge may disallow the evidence if it will cause undue prejudice.

Interestingly, a James Dunn starred in the Walt Disney movie, "The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca." I wonder if it is the same fellow as the judge on this case, and whether he has a grudge against Disney?

Katprint

Katlovett
12-13-2006, 11:25 AM
I take back the "grudge" thing. I see that Hon. James R. Dunn was the same judge who initially sustained Disney's demurrer (legalese for "ruled that plaintiff had no case") at the beginning but then was overruled by the California Supreme Court in 2005.

And anyone who REALLY cares can go to the Los Angeles County Superior Court's website http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/civilCaseSummary/index.asp?CaseType=Civil and register and pay $4.75 name search plus $7.50 per document download fee to look at the court documents. The case name is ESTATE OF CRISTINA MORENO VS THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY ET AL and the case number is BC258512.

Katprint

Bolivar
12-13-2006, 12:19 PM
I tried to find Judge James Dunn's opinion online, but wasn't able to. But often in cases like this, the defendant argues that it is impossible for the design to have been made safer; for example, a kitchen knife manufacturer may argue that the dangerous sharp edge of knife cannot reasonably be eliminated without destroying the function of the knife.

By way of analogy, let's say a person claims their injury resulted from a room having been painted blue. If Disney says, "We had to paint the room blue because it was impossible to paint it any other color" but after the accident Disney paints the room red, then the plaintiff may want to use that fact to show that it would have been possible to paint the room red in the beginning. However the plaintiff is not allowed to use the fact that the room was subsequently painted red, to prove that the room being blue caused their injury. This distinction can be confusing to the jury, and the judge may disallow the evidence if it will cause undue prejudice.

Interestingly, a James Dunn starred in the Walt Disney movie, "The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca." I wonder if it is the same fellow as the judge on this case, and whether he has a grudge against Disney?

Katprint
That makes sense. So the plaintiff can only present that the ride was changed as a rebuttal to an argument that the ride couldn't be changed, but can't argue that the ride was changed because it was unsafe. Is that right?

Katlovett
12-13-2006, 12:50 PM
That makes sense. So the plaintiff can only present that the ride was changed as a rebuttal to an argument that the ride couldn't be changed, but can't argue that the ride was changed because it was unsafe. Is that right?

In a nutshell, that's right. Of course, I don't know what specific argument the plaintiff's attorneys are relying on to justify the "subsequent remedial measures" being admitted into evidence. (I would have paid the money to download the judge's opinion, but only documents through 12/8/06 were available online yet.) Also, the jury may still believe that the ride was changed because it was unsafe, especially if the changes that made the ride "more reliable" and "last longer," also made it smoother and less likely to cause injuries. That is the "undue prejudice" risk.

Katprint

Bolivar
12-13-2006, 01:39 PM
It is no wonder juries can't grasp the fine points. When I was on a jury, I noticed that anyone with advanced degrees was rejected, anyone with a professional job was ejected, anyone who showed intelligence was rejected (Notice I was selected). In talking to others they have noticed the same thing. In thinking about this, I could understand a lawyer with a weak case wanting an unintelligent jury, one that they can try to steer away from the facts and sway with an emotional argument. But it seemed that both sides were doing this so I couldn't figure it out.