Margarita Pina hoped May 1 would be an enjoyable day at Disneyland with her two toddlers.
But the Riverside County mother got more than she paid for when a six-foot tree branch loaded with fruit and weighing “30 or 40 pounds” fell on her head while she was seated in a shady picnic area at the world famous Anaheim amusement park.
Now, Pina wants Disney, which collect more than $38 billion in annually revenue, to pay.
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According to the Oct. 13 lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court,
Pina says she suffered “lacerations, abrasions and contusions,” incurred
more than $4,300 in related expenses and seeks additional damages for
pain and suffering from a future jury.
Other park patrons had to remove the branch.
Pina's
lawyers claim that Disneyland officials failed to properly maintain the
trees “so as to make the picnic area safe” for customers.
The
lawsuit also asserts that Pina has suffered pain throughout her upper
body, is frequently dizzy, has difficulty sleeping, constant pain in the
neck and mild nervousness. A chiropractor diagnosed a spinal sprain.
Disneyland lawyers, who handle dozens of these types of cases annually, have not yet filed a response in court.
The case has been assigned to Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Moss.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.