There's Nothing Common About the Happiest Place on Earth -- Disneyland Permitted to Vary Admission Prices to Encourage Local Patrons

Occasionally, one of the perquisites of being an appellate judge is the opportunity to wax whimsical while still deciding a genuinely contested question of law. Such an opportunity presented itself to Justice Wiseman of California's Court of Appeal for the Fifth Appellate District in a dispute over the pricing of admission to Disneyland. The initial paragraphs of the opinion tell the tale:

As we celebrate Mickey Mouse’s 75th birthday, we are called upon to address the legal status of Disneyland in the context of its Resident Salute program, a marketing concept that offers nearby residents a discount as an incentive to visit during the slow season. Essentially, during certain times of the year, if Mickey lives in Los Angeles, he pays $8 to $10 less per ticket than his girlfriend, Minnie, assuming she lives in some far off land such as Oz or Fresno.

Recognizing there is no such thing as a “free ride,” Disney fans fork out lots of money to buy a ticket to enter the Magic Kingdom and partake of its many sights and sounds. Appellants allege that Disney discriminated against them by offering cheaper admission tickets to nearby residents than all others and that doing so is unlawful because Disney is a “common carrier” under Civil Code section 2168.

We conclude that Disney is not a common carrier under section 2168 with respect to all who pay admission to enter its Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California. If we were to conclude otherwise, the next logical step would be to characterize a baseball park as a common carrier or a movie theatre as a common carrier—just because they also contain elevators, escalators and other people-moving devices. In reaching our conclusion, we offer no opinion regarding whether any particular ride within the Disneyland theme park is or is not a common carrier as it is irrelevant to our decision regarding the park as a whole.

If you are sufficiently intrigued to want to read the entire opinion in the case -- Simon v. Walt Disney World Co. (January 8, 2004), Case No. F040732 -- it can be found at these links in PDF and Word formats.