Altercation at Epcot’s Candlelight Processional Results in 4 Year Court Battle
Each year, during the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays, the theme park offers a dazzling retelling of the story of the First Christmas complete with celebrity narrators, a full orchestra and massive choir. Though this is one of the most joyous events you’ll find during the Holiday Season at Disney World, one particular Candlelight Processional performance didn’t end that way and has resulted in a lawsuit.
According to a piece in the Orlando Sentinel, Claude Baldwin, 74, attended a performance with his family in 2011. At the end of the concert, an altercation ensued between Claude and the person sitting next to him in the audience – an unnamed 15-year-old boy who has Asperger’s (a mild form of Autism.) The end result was that Claude ended up falling to the ground and suffered injuries, the precipitating event varies depending on which side you ask.
Claude and his family contest that the 15-year-old attacked Baldwin at the end of the show. However, the boy’s family argue that it was Claude and his family members that caused the incident.
According to the Baldwins, the boy, who was sitting next to Baldwin and uninterested in the show was listening to his iPod instead. They said the boy, eager to leave at the end of the performance told Baldwin, “’Get the hell out of the way, old man!” in an attempt to leave. When Claude Baldwin refused to move, he said he was run over by the boy.
Claude’s daughter Judy Durham, who was working as a recruitment manager for Disney at the time corroborated the story saying that the boy took his fist and punched Baldwin in the chest causing him to fall back over the bleachers resulting in injuries.
The boys family tell a different story. They allege that it was Claude Baldwin that became aggressive. The boy also testified that Baldwin pushed him first and he then pushed back. According to the piece in the Sentinel, the boy’s father, a doctor from Longwood said, “He launched himself up out of the chair and reached up and grabbed my son. And the next thing I saw was that [my son] pushed back and Mr Baldwin fell.”
The boy’s family then alleges that Baldwin’s son got involved resulting in a physical altercation between their son and Chad Baldwin. At that time deputies arrived on the scene to break up the scuffle. At the time the Baldwins declined to prosecute saying that they did not want to get the boy in trouble.
However, four years later, the Baldwins decided to sue saying in the lawsuit that Claude Baldwin had been seriously injured, was now disabled and that the altercation had aggravated a pre-existing health condition. The suit was for more than $15,000 in Orange Circuit Court. The lawsuit, however, was voluntarily dismissed in October. Court filings do not say whether or not a settlement had been reached.
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