Guest Column - Theme Park Legislation
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II. Park Inspection of attractions once a year. This is a silly requirement to put into law. The parks inspect their rides every day, so this is just empty language in the bill meant to assuage the general public.
III. Open Records. This is considered the heart of the bill, and the provision I find the most ludicrous. The parks would be required to report to the State all maintenance records, all training procedures and proof of training, and all accident reports. I understand some of you may be thinking, "That is a great idea, there is nothing wrong with that!" Let's look a little closer at the provision. Proponents of the bill claim this provision gives them access to accident reports so that they can make an informed decision about whether to ride an attraction. How many of you buy that story? Do you really think there will be a line of people outside of the Jungle Cruise carefully reading a printout of accident records and weighing the pros and cons of riding? Of course not, that is a foolish reason given to support the bill. So what then is the real reason for this provision? LAWSUITS. My wife and I are both attorneys in Texas and let me tell you this law will be a windfall for plaintiff's attorneys. Free access to all accident reports and maintenance records! It is like having a license to print money. Given those records, even the most asinine case (like the lady who claimed she suffered a brain injury on the Indiana Jones Adventure) can be made to look good in front of a jury. I ask you, is the goal of theme park regulation to provide financial support to plaintiff's attorneys? No? Well that is all it accomplishes.
A. Please allow me to go off on a tangent...plaintiff's attorneys. Ah, the scourge of the legal profession (quite an accomplishment I can assure you) and second only to the mighty garden slug in producing slime. If they are not chasing ambulances they are stating their opponents should be shot. "Opponents should be shot", surely I must be exaggerating. Surely no professional would engage in such inflammatory hyperbole? Oh, if only that were the case:
1. "If this miserable, rotten corporation doesn't immediately go to every other ride and close it down before somebody else gets hurt, they should be shot at dawn," said Zucker family attorney Tom Girardi. (From an December 30th article in the Orange County Register). And you wonder why the harshest critics of attorneys come from within our own ranks!
2. Yes, the attorney of the Zucker family is being a zealous advocate for his clients. That is the overriding ethical consideration of all attorneys. Some of us however recognize that such intentionally inflammatory statements actually harm our clients more than they benefit them. In Texas, where my wife and I practice, such a statement would be a clear violation of State Bar rules, and would almost assuredly result in a sanction. Why? Because such statements harm the legal profession as a whole. Even having stated my opinions about plaintiff's attorneys generally, one cannot deny that attorneys fulfill an important role in society. Lawsuits are not always frivolous (and let me say that as of yet I do not think that the underlying lawsuit in the Zucker case is frivolous), and many times they bring about social change that would not otherwise occur. But when attorneys meet the low expectations and maintain the low regard in which our profession is held, it infuriates me.
IV. Post-Accident Modification: Something intentionally left out of the legislation but proposed in the regulations, is the power of the State oversight agency to require specific modifications to an attraction deemed “unsafe”. Until this past weekend, advocates for government regulation have kept relatively quiet about this power. This is the sword of the regulation. Essentially the State could force the park to enact a specific number of requirements (not just, "make it safe", but specific design changes) before the attraction could be re-opened. This is a horrid idea on so many levels:
A. "Unsafe": Does this mean if I stub my toe getting into a ride vehicle that the attraction is unsafe? How about if the cause of the accident is rider error? Suppose a Big Thunder train is pulling into the station. But I am overexcited and my accompanying party is not paying attention either. I stick my foot out of the car before it stops and I hurt myself. The accident was clearly my fault, but arguably the attraction is now unsafe in the eyes of the State, correct? The problem is the State has entirely too much power to declare something "unsafe" based solely on subjective means.
B. Competency: With all due respect to State employees, I find it difficult to believe that any governmental agency is capable of doing a better job of oversight that Walt Disney Imagineering, and the parks' in-house maintenance professionals. Whether it be in analyzing the safety level of an attraction, or designing modifications, I seriously doubt any State agency will improve upon in-house oversight.