Disneyland Paris Guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter at Phantom Manor

Euro Disney is guilty of involuntary manslaughter and must pay the maximum fine of 225,000 euros after a maintenance technician was electrocuted at Phantom Manor, the haunted house at Disneyland Paris, the criminal court in Meaux has ruled.

Olivier, 45, was electrocuted on April 2, 2016, in Chessy (Seine-et-Marne). He was on an urgent job replacing a projector bulb. That projector was indispensable for the safety of guests moving through the attraction.

Agence France-Presse learned of the verdict Wednesday, Aug. 26, from the prosecutor’s office, confirming a report from Le Parisien. The criminal court (tribunal correctionnel) in Meaux imposed the fine on the company Euro Disney.

On Tuesday, July 7, 2026, a Disney executive sat as a defendant alongside a counterpart from the inspection firm Veritas. Both companies appeared on charges of involuntary manslaughter. After six weeks of deliberation, the judges acquitted Bureau Veritas, which was tasked with the park’s regulatory electrical inspections, and found Disney guilty.

An investigation was quickly opened and placed under the supervision of an investigating judge. It concluded that a series of technical and managerial failings did not ensure employee safety. Access to the area was difficult, and lighting was insufficient to intervene. The equipment was aging, and an electrical hookup used a non-compliant cable to a very distant outlet. Staff alerts and recommendations had been ignored, and the wording of a procedure manual turned binding rules into mere recommendations.

The victim’s two daughters and the UNSA union delegate appeared as civil parties. They declined to speak themselves and left their representation to their lawyers. The pleadings followed one after another, and each ended with a claim for damages.

Meaux prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier began his remarks in an unusual way. First he apologized to the deceased man’s two daughters for the slowness of the justice system in delivering a judicial response. He then focused his prosecution on Disney, in his view solely responsible for the tragedy and already convicted of French Labor Code violations. At the July 7 hearing, according to Le Parisien, Bladier stressed that the safety and prudence failings were “entirely attributable to Euro Disney.”

The tone of the proceedings, damaging to Disney, did not escape the defense lawyer. She tried to minimize her client’s responsibility, without much success. Her colleague who defended Bureau Veritas benefited from a more favorable stance from the prosecutor’s office, which had requested an acquittal.

The judges admitted the civil claims of the deceased man’s two daughters and awarded each 53,000 euros for emotional harm and lawyer fees. For one of the two, who had to take on burdens previously paid by the father, they added 13,000 euros. They granted the UNSA union 12,000 euros for harm to collective professional interests. According to UNSA Disneyland Paris, the employee’s two daughters, as civil parties, received “a little more than 113,000 euros in compensation,” 10 years after the accident.

“This judgment will not bring back our colleague Olivier, who died while making an emergency intervention on an attraction, but we hope it will make management realize that it is exposing its employees to risks, with chronically understaffed maintenance teams,” Antonio Ferreira, secretary general of the UNSA Disneyland Paris union, told AFP. In a message on the social network X, the union had written: “This judgment says one simple thing: Olivier’s professionalism was never in question. It is the organization of work, the chronic understaffing and the degraded working conditions that, still today, put maintenance employees in danger.”

Phantom Manor is the haunted house guests move through at Disneyland Paris. The same attraction was an emergency job that ended in Olivier’s death. The Meaux verdict does not bring him back, but it names the responsibility: Euro Disney is guilty, Bureau Veritas is acquitted. The daughters and UNSA were awarded compensation. The union’s hope remains that management will realize the risks it is, according to this account, imposing on its employees.