The most common lawsuit at Orlando’s theme parks is a simple slip and fall. The Orlando Sentinel published a review on March 30, 2009 of the 477 state and federal lawsuits filed against the region’s three big theme-park companies between Jan. 1, 2004, and Dec. 31, 2008, found that 218 cases — 46 percent — involved people who said they had slipped or tripped and fallen during a visit to Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando or a Busch Entertainment Corp. theme park or resort. Rides or attractions — the heart of the theme-park business — accounted for 101 of the cases. The other 158 lawsuits involved a variety of accidents in shops, during shows or on streets or sidewalks.

Here is a look at the full searchable database of lawsuits.

The parks may attract more than their share of frivolous lawsuits, one expert says, because they create a fantasy world where expectations of comfort and safety run high. The suits offer a variety of complaints:

• A man from Virginia sued Disney World in 2005, saying food poisoning caused him to gag so badly he ruptured his esophagus.
• A Titusville woman sued SeaWorld in 2005, saying she fell and was injured when the Clydesdale parade horses spooked and charged the crowd.
• A woman from Hawaii sued Busch Gardens-Tampa Bay in 2006, saying she contracted a rare blood disease when a wayward vulture from a trained-bird show clawed her legs.
• An Orlando man sued Universal in 2006, saying he was roughed up and injured when security guards threw him out of a bar at CityWalk.

Theme parks have been described as “little cities” where non-normal things happen on a regular basis like people being thrown in the air on roller coasters, or pyrotechnics. Lyrissa C. Barnett Lidsky, a University of Florida law professor has said, “It is hard to imagine another business that has such a wide array of activities that create a potential for tort liability.” However, considering the number of guests who pass through each park each day, there are surprisingly few lawsuits. The Sentinel’s lawsuit review also found that:

• Few of those who sue a theme park rush into it. Three-fourths of the plaintiffs claiming injuries since the start of 2004 waited more than a year before filing a lawsuit. Almost one in every five waited until just before the Florida statute of limitations expired — four years. Many people spend years trying to negotiate their injury claim to get their medical bills paid before suing. Typically, Plaintiff’s are from out of state; they come down here, they get injured,  — their vacations are ruined – and they want to be compensated.
• Once sued, a theme park rarely backs down quickly. More than two-thirds of the cases filed against a theme park since the beginning of 2004 remained active in court for at least a year. Some cases from 2004 were still active at the start of 2009.
• Most lawsuits are settled out of court. Of the 477 cases, 117 were still pending as of March 15. Of the 360 cases filed since the start of 2004 that have been resolved, only seven went to trial and reached a jury verdict — and the theme parks won all seven. Two-thirds of the rest were either settled officially or concluded with private agreements that stop short of using the word “settlement.” Another 27 percent were dismissed by a judge with no indication of a deal.
• Most settlements are secret. Of the 246 cases filed since 2004 that have already ended in some sort of agreement, only six reported dollar amounts: three with Universal, two with Disney and one with Busch Entertainment. Those deals ranged from a low of $4,300 — offered to the family of a boy injured on Doctor Doom’s Fear Fall in Universal’s Islands of Adventure — to a high of $145,000 — offered to the family of a toddler run over by a taxicab at a Disney hotel.
• Plaintiffs who lose sometimes end up footing the theme parks’ legal bills. The theme-park companies can, and do, go after unsuccessful plaintiffs, seeking reimbursement for their legal expenses. Under Florida law, anyone who sues anyone else over a personal injury faces this possibility. If the defendant offers a settlement, but the plaintiff rejects it and then loses the case (or, in some circumstances, even if the plaintiff wins the case), the defendant can demand the plaintiff pay the defendant’s legal bills.

What happens if you sue a Theme Park?  Only a tiny percentage of personal-injury lawsuits in the U.S. ever go to trial. In the 101 ride or attraction-related suits filed against Disney, Universal or Busch Entertainment in state or federal court, none has reached a jury. Twenty-three of the suits are still pending, but the other 78 — including some that claim rides caused strokes, heart attacks, spinal injuries or, in two cases, a person’s death — were either settled out of court or dismissed by a judge. As is typical in personal-injury cases, many of the theme park-case dismissals, and nearly all of the settlement agreements, were then sealed from public view; the only three exceptions involved small settlements, worth $25,000 or less each.

Injuries reported: Florida law exempts theme parks from the state inspections and mandatory reporting required of carnivals and small amusement parks. In 2000, the big parks signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the state in which they volunteered to start providing certain ride-injury information to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service’s Bureau of Fair Rides Inspection. This gave Florida one of the country’s best injury-reporting system. California, the only other state with several large theme parks, has stricter reporting requirements, but they don’t necessarily generate better data. Yet, the Florida system requires theme parks to disclose only injuries that involve a person’s death or an immediate hospital stay that exceeds 24 hours “for purposes other than medical observation.” As a result, only nine of the 101 ride-related lawsuits found in the Sentinel’s review of 2004-08 court cases were reported to the state as accidents when they occurred, even though at least a few of the 92 other cases include allegations of serious harm.

Access difficult: Most theme park guests who get injured do not sue. However, they do report their injuries at a theme-park first-aid station, or later from home. Theme park lawyers have blocked requests to see their injury-claim records, arguing that the company maintains such information in anticipation of lawsuits and so the documents are protected by the legal principle of attorney-client privilege.

Basic safety claims: Some cases are not ride-related lawsuits in that they do not blame the injuries on accidents, equipment failures or operational errors. Instead, they allege that the very nature of the attraction caused people serious harm. The Sentinel’s review of lawsuits found 24 cases with this allegation among the 101 ride-related suits filed from Jan. 1, 2004, through Dec. 31, 2008. All of the theme parks challenge any suggestion that their rides could be inherently unsafe. The rides all are designed to international safety standards, and all three companies have some of the top ride-safety experts in the country on their staffs. The parks blame the problems on riders who behave recklessly or fail to heed conspicuous warnings even though they have risky, pre-existing medical conditions. Central Florida’s theme parks have the clearest and most comprehensive ride warnings, often involving signs plus audio and video recordings.