Visitors stroll past Hogwarts castle within The Wizarding World of Harry Potter section of the Islands of Adventure theme park at the Universal Orlando Resort in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday, March 26, 2017 (Phelan M. Ebenhack via AP).
A Florida man is suing Universal Studios after he allegedly got stuck on a roller coaster in a tilted position for an hour.
In the lawsuit lodged last week in the Sunshine State’s Ninth Judicial Circuit, Casey Causey asserts he was on the “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey” roller coaster on July 2, 2023, when the ride “came to an abrupt stop, leaving their cart suspended midair at an angle that tilted him backward and to the right.”
“Plaintiff was held in this position for around one hour, after which the cart was shifted to an upright position,” the complaint further states, noting that “the roller coaster constituted a defective product.”
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Causey has accused Universal of negligence, saying the theme park owed him a duty “to exercise ordinary care and skill to avoid foreseeable harm to Plaintiff and other similarly situated persons.” The park created an “unreasonable risk of harm” because it failed to fix problems with the ride even though park workers knew it was “defective,” the suit said, and Causey suffered injuries as a result.
Those injuries include “bodily injury, resulting in pain and suffering, disability, disfigurement, scarring, mental anguish, loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life, expense of hospitalization, medical and nursing care and treatment, loss of earnings, loss of the ability to earn money, damage to property, inconvenience, and aggravation of a previously existing condition.”
“Such losses are either permanent or continuing in nature, and the Plaintiff will suffer these losses and impairments in the future,” the lawsuit added.
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The lawsuit says Causey’s injuries are due to the park’s desire to put profits over safety.
“[T]he defendants’ failure to fix the roller coaster, shut it down, or provide adequate warning of the potential stoppage was done out of desire to obtain money for ticket sales for the park,” Causey’s lawyers wrote in the complaint.
Causey, meanwhile, has lost the ability to earn money, the lawsuit alleges.
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A second lawsuit was also filed against Universal on Tuesday, court records show. A patron who visited the recently opened Epic Universe theme park suffered injuries in a fall. She says she was visiting the park during one of its preview days on April 24 when she fell on a “poorly designed” staircase on the “Yoshi’s Adventure” ride.
She said she did not see a “watch your step” sign and only heard an employee warning guests about the issue after she “was already falling.”
Universal did not immediately return a message seeking comment on both lawsuits.
