Woman Sues Disney After Foot Trapped in Ride Queue
Deborah Montgomery went to Magic Kingdom with her family on August 7, 2024. She has chronic arthritis and rented an electric convenience vehicle — an ECV — from the park to help navigate the day. She ended up in the queue for Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid in Fantasyland.
She didn't make it to the ride.
According to a lawsuit filed against Walt Disney World Resort, as Deborah's family moved through the attraction's cave-like queue, her left foot became wedged in a crevice along the wall. The filing describes the area as sitting at the bottom of a "dramatic slope" where the crevice narrowed as the incline increased. The ECV kept moving forward. Her foot didn't. The result was injuries to her foot, ankle, and leg — including a fractured fibula — along with what the lawsuit describes as "severe and permanent shock to her nervous system."
Her husband Matthew Montgomery is also named as a plaintiff. His portion of the lawsuit claims he was "deprived of the aide, comfort, society, and companionship of his wife" following the incident, along with loss of sleep.
The couple is seeking $50,000 in damages.
The lawsuit accuses Disney of failing to provide a safe path through the queue, failing to inspect the pathways, failing to post warning signs, and failing to provide sufficient lighting — "particularly for business invitees such as Deborah." That last phrase is a legal term of art meaning a person who is on the property for a commercial purpose — i.e., a paying theme park guest — to whom the property owner owes a specific duty of care.
Disney has not publicly responded to this particular lawsuit.
Disney Lawsuits Are Their Own Genre at This Point
The Montgomery case is one entry in a long and growing list of injury lawsuits filed against Walt Disney World, several of which have made national headlines in recent years.
Earlier this year Disney responded to a separate $50,000 lawsuit from a Kentucky woman named Rhonda Smith who claims she tripped on the trolley tracks on Main Street USA at Magic Kingdom and suffered permanent injuries. Disney's response in that case was blunt — it argued the tracks are "open and obvious" and that the incident was the result of Smith's own negligence. That case is still active.
Before that, a lawsuit involving a waterslide at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon — which alleged a woman suffered serious injuries from a "painful wedgie" caused by the Humunga Kowabunga slide shifting her swimsuit — drew national media attention before being voluntarily dismissed earlier this year.
Why These Cases Are Hard to Win
Florida premises liability law requires that a property owner maintain reasonably safe conditions for guests — but it also recognizes comparative negligence, meaning a jury can assign partial responsibility to the injured party if they find the guest's own actions contributed to the accident.
Disney's standard defense in these cases typically involves arguing the hazard was open and obvious, that the guest assumed some level of risk, or that proper safety measures were in place and the accident resulted from the guest's own behavior rather than a property defect. In the Montgomery case, Disney will almost certainly argue that the slope and wall crevice were visible conditions any reasonable ECV operator would have noticed.
The plaintiff's strongest counter-argument is that Disney specifically designed and controls that queue, that they invite guests with mobility equipment to use it, and that a queue configuration that traps the foot of a mobility scooter user represents a foreseeable hazard the park had an obligation to fix.
Whether $50,000 accurately reflects Deborah Montgomery's actual damages — ongoing impairment, medical expenses, and an inability to "continue and pursue a normal life" — or whether it's a starting negotiating position for a settlement is something the case will eventually clarify.
Magic Kingdom gets an estimated 57,000 visitors per day. Almost all of them go home without incident. But for a family that rented a mobility scooter so mom could enjoy the day, one cave-themed queue turned a Disney trip into a fractured bone and a lawsuit.
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