The majority of the suits filed never make it to a courtroom, either. The Sentinel found that just seven cases filed since 2004 have gone to trial and reached a verdict. And that the parks won all seven. (And the parks recouped their legal fees in at leats one of them.) Basically, if you are among the tiny fraction of people who have a realistic case against a park, you and the park likely settle.
When I worked in the parks, I witnessed plenty of incidents that could have risen to the level of a suit. But, the data show, they almost never do. Despite the bloviating of people clamoring for lawsuit reform, most people and companies are reasonable and can settle up or deal with incidents before juries get involved.
For the second, how much faith can we put in anything Goldman Sachs predicts? I don't doubt that WDW is going to see some bad attendance numbers this year, but I doubt that will be the case for DLR. Empirical evidence has pointed to a packed park so far this year, and I don't think that will change anytime soon.
Most of the 477 seem extremly minor and actually out of Disney's hands with trips, slips, etc. If that were the case, I might have some cases :)
Some of them are somewhat legitimate, like the incidents on rides, but most are just sheer idiocy.
Sidenote: Kudos to the Disney and Universal for potting the downward trend more than a year ago and reacting with discounts and aggressive promotions.
We will make it through.
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