LI Man Whose Wife Suffered Fatal Allergic Reaction At Disney World Drops Wrongful Death Suit: Court Docs

WEST PALM BEACH, FL. — A Plainview man has dropped his lawsuit, which alleged that a Disney Springs restaurant had served his wife food with allergens in it, causing her to have a fatal allergic reaction to the meal an hour after eating, a Feb. 27 court filing shows. Named in the lawsuit as co-defendants were Walt Disney Parks And Resorts and Great Irish Pubs Florida.

Plainview resident Jeffrey Piccolo filed suit just over three years ago, stating in his civil complaint against the park and restaurant company that his wife, Carle Place resident and NYU-Langone doctor of osteopathy Kanokporn Tangsuan, had died after suffering an allergic reaction to a meal served to the couple and Piccolo’s mother at Raglan Road Irish Pub, a restaurant in Walt Disney World.

The Feb. 27 filing states through an attorney that Piccolo was voluntarily dismissing all of the causes of action he had asserted against Disney, Great Irish Pubs and Raglan Road.

According to the 2024 complaint, Tangsuan and Piccolo had repeatedly asked their server if certain items had dairy or nuts in them, to which Tangsuan was severely allergic. The complaint states that they also asked to confirm that the meal could be served allergen-free, even asking if their requests had been honored when the meal arrived without customary “allergen-free” flags. According to the complaint, their server “guaranteed the food being delivered was allergen free.”

After the meal, the complaint reads that Piccolo returned to a hotel room with leftovers from the meal while Tangsuan and Jackie Piccolo, Jeffrey’s mother, went out shopping. Within an hour of eating the meal, however, the 42-year-old had a "severe acute allergic reaction to the food served at Raglan,” the complaint reads. That allergic reaction left her with severe difficulty breathing, ultimately collapsing at a nearby restaurant after self-administering an epi pen.

The suit sought more than $50,000 in damages, and made national headlines after Disney filed a motion to force the suit into arbitration on May 31, 2024.

In that motion, lawyers for the company argued that Piccolo had agreed to terms and conditions when signing up for a Disney+ account in 2019, five years earlier, which contained a “binding arbitration clause.”

That clause, the lawyers wrote, stated that, “any dispute between [Piccolo] and [Disney], Except for Small Claims, is subject to a class action waiver and must be resolved by individual binding arbitration.”

Disney ultimately did not pursue the Disney+ defense, NPR reported. The attorneys for Piccolo and Disney both didn’t respond to requests for comment Monday, while the office of the attorneys representing the restaurant declined to comment when asked for a response by Patch.

As for what exactly precipitated the voluntary dismissal, Piccolo's Feb. 27 filing makes no mention of a settlement agreement or remuneration of any kind.