August 27, 2019: In Which I Am Supposed to Shill for Disney

This post is the essential George. This story is what this blog is about. Except for all the other ones. I have three completely mystifying events that I’ve never really understood. I blame the Deep State. Any and all comments are more than welcome, are urgently requested. Anyone have any idea what was going on?

A million years ago, Nancy and I sold a book titled Confounded Expectations: The Law’s Struggle with Personal Responsibility. Nancy had the first idea, a sort of social history of the U.S. through its laws, and of course I took it and completely perverted it. Her idea was taking some really foolish cases and talking about them as a social history of the country. One of the cases we both liked, but didn’t find a place in the final manuscript, was a holding by a state court in North Carolina that fingerprints on a Moonpie were admissible. Maybe we should have stuck with her concept considering how the book sold.

However, I stand by that little bastard; it was one of four finalists (no winner announced) for the American Bar Association’s nonfiction book of the year in maybe 2001. So someone liked it.

Anyway, after it was published, I heard from a law firm in Los Angeles that Disney wanted to interview me over an accident that had occurred and that they were concerned about.

This is NOT as cool as it sounds, if it sounds cool. It turns out that a lawyer for Disney owed his friend at the firm, our old law school classmate Tim, a favor. (This must have been some favor.) So a troubling incident occurred, and Tim suggested our book as something Disney could look into. This lawyer bought a million copies of our book (“We’ll just bill it to the Mouse,” he sniggered) for everyone at Disney (hereafter “the Mouse”) to read.

The next thing I know, I’m flying into some airport or another—how many do they have down there? Was it the embarrassingly named John Wayne? And some car took me to a Mouse property, through some gate, then to some conference room. In attendance: the lawyer from the firm (who tossed my book onto the table and noted condescendingly, “Nice little book George,” to which I would love to have answered, “Fuck you, too, corporate lackey”); and at least six vice presidents, the only one of whom I recalled was a senior head of litigation. Oh, and I think a minor president of some sort was involved.

Their problem was that a little boy had been mangled on one of their rides. The Mouse’s theory was that the parents had been negligent in strapping him in or some such, though of course employees are supposed to make sure that’s secured. Their interest in my book was, I guess, spurred by this partner from the law firm.

Their questions were very strange. “Shouldn’t they have paid more attention?”

“What do we do about this?”

“What do you think about this accident?”

“Shouldn’t the parents take personal responsibility for this accident?” (Ah, they all DID look at the title, at least.)

My only responses, to which I didn’t give voice, were, (1) what, this hasn’t happened before, and if it hasn’t, you never thought to come up with a response to an accident like this? And why are you asking me? Shouldn’t you be experts in accidents mangling visitors? (Except that someone told me that the philosophy at The Mouse was that you threw bodies over the fence before you admitted that someone died on The Mouse’s property.)

And (2) given my AIG insurance experience, Holy Christ, if your machine injured the little boy, pay his fucking medical bills! You only clear billions a year. If I learned anything in insurance litigation, it’s that you pick your battles: despite worrying about setting a precedent, you can always choose to fight another day. If, say, for instance, you have a sympathetic plaintiff like a mangled little boy who is going to have the jury sobbing into their hands after three minutes.

I ended up saying something more to the effect of (2) above—pay the claims. I don’t think they liked it.

At one point, someone said something like, “In your other appearances and interviews, what have you said about….?” Hahahahaha. Oh yes, all of my other appearances and interviews.

Well, SOMEONE didn’t do any due diligence on me, for I think he was serious.

In only about 35 minutes, they were done with me. I made my way back to the airport and flew home.

Later, I had a hassle with them about my expenses that only deepened the mystery. My contact was a very nice fellow, a lawyer, I think. But he balked at paying my hourly rate for coming down there. My guess, as they never made anything clear, had been that I was flying down to consult on this issue. Like I was any kind of an expert, but still, weren’t they paying for my time?

But my contact, who was a very nice man, said something to the effect of, people who are auditioning for us don’t get paid for their time.

Huh? In what sense was I auditioning? No one said anything about that. Is it a given when you’re invited down to see the Mouse that you’re “auditioning” for something? What was it? If I’d played my cards right, had I known what the game was, would I have ended up on ABC World News This Very Evening, or whatever those things are called now? Was I supposed to know what the game was? If I’d played my cards right, whatever those cards were and however they were supposed to be played, I have no idea—would I have become a media star, along the lines of Jeffrey Toobin or at least Sebastian Gorka (OK, not Sebastian Gorka.)

Almost twenty years later, I still have no idea what that was about, unless I was actually auditioning to be some sort of spokesperson, threadbare and confused. Any comments? Anyone else summoned to the Mouse to help absolve them of their horrible corporate sins? Like, say, Disneyland? Any and all comments, no matter how condescending and eye-rolling, will be much appreciated. I’d rather be humiliated than take this mystery to my soon-arriving grave.