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TV Reality Show Arbitration Clause Binds Non-Signing Participant

BY Noeleen G. Walder
April 28, 2011

A teen beauty who slapped The Walt Disney Co. with a $100 million suit claiming she had been depicted as a bratty child on the reality TV show Wife Swap will not have her day in court.

Alicia Guastaferro was 15 when her mother signed a release and waiver for her TV appearance, during which the daughter made the comment that she felt “sorry for people who aren't as gorgeous as me.” Even though Guastaferro did not execute the release, Acting New York County Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla nonetheless held that she was bound by its arbitration clause. Guastaferro v. The Walt Disney Co., 600721/2010.

Billed as a non-scripted reality show, Wife Swap featured two families with women who held markedly different values and parenting styles. The women would trade places and impose their household rules on the other family. The last episode of Wife Swap aired on ABC in 2009.

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