The first stop in Walt Disney’s sweeping lawsuit against Ron DeSantis is a court led by a judge who in a ruling last year said Florida’s governor “stopped waking up Elements of the bill are “certainly dystopian.”
In that case, Judge Mark Walker will be asked to decide whether DeSantis’ year-long battle with Wake Disney violated the entertainment conglomerate’s constitutional rights. In a 77-page complaint filed last week, Disney accused DeSantis and members of his administration of orchestrating a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” that threatened the future of its Florida operations and violated the The right to freedom of speech enshrined in the Constitution.
Given DeSantis’s willingness to rule against DeSantis in other cases, “Disney may act in front of a judge,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia. outstanding”. “But I think he’ll be enlightened and fair.”
In the unusual case, Disney and its chief executive, Bob Iger, took on DeSantis, a potential candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination people. It marks an extraordinary spat between Florida’s largest private employer and its governor, whose party has long enjoyed a reputation as the state’s unquestionable business ally.
The confrontation began last year when Disney’s then-CEO Bob Chapek opposed Florida’s educational parental rights law, a controversial measure known by its opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Disney employees in Orlando and elsewhere objected to the law, which limits what teachers can say about LGBT+ issues in schools.
After Disney spoke out against the law, DeSantis said the company “crossed the line” and pledged to “fight back” — comments that Disney cited in its lawsuit to support its argument that the governor and his allies are seeking retaliation as the company exercises its Speech protected by the Constitution.
At a recent news conference, DeSantis considered potential penalties for Disney, including adding toll roads around its theme parks, imposing new taxes on its hotels and even building a prison nearby. Such a public confrontation by DeSantis could make for good politics, legal experts said, but could complicate his defense of Disney’s argument that the governor was trying to retaliate against the company for its stance on LGBT+ issues.
“That’s going to be the biggest question DeSantis faces when he goes to court,” said Adam Winkler, a professor at UCLA School of Law and an expert on the U.S. constitution. “It’s going to be harder for them because they’re very clearly punishing Disney for expressing their views.”
Disney’s lawsuit cites Florida House of Representatives Randy Fine, who last year sponsored a bill to break up the special tax district that Disney has operated around its theme parks for decades as DeSantis and evidence of retaliation by its allies.
“You kick a hornet’s nest and things happen,” Fine said at the time. “You made one thing clear to me, this bill does target a company — it targets The Walt Disney Company.”
Such explicit public statements make the case highly unusual, said Kathleen Ross, a professor at George Washington University School of Law.
“In retaliation cases, you don’t usually have this kind of ill-advised public statement,” she said. “Most of the time, if you’re going to get revenge, you’re going to pretend that’s not what you’re doing, and make up reasons to justify what you’re doing. But they don’t give any reason, other than ‘We’re really sorry for Disney. very angry’.”
Ron DeSantis supporters rally outside Walt Disney World theme parks in Orlando in 2022 © Octavio Jones/Reuters
Disney is asking a federal court to quash DeSantis’ control of the theme park district’s board of directors. In a news conference after the lawsuit, DeSantis said Disney was “frustrated because they have to play by the same rules as everyone else. They don’t want to pay taxes like everyone else, they want to be able to control without proper oversight matter.”
On Monday, the board of directors appointed by DeSantis to oversee the area around Disney’s theme parks pledged to countersue the company.
If appealed, the case would move to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, a conservative court representing parts of Florida, Georgia and Alabama. Legal experts note that many of the arguments Disney makes are backed by pro-business Republicans — notably the company’s right to free speech — so it’s hard to tell how the case will fare on the appeals court or the Supreme Court, should it ever reach so far away.
“We traditionally thought conservatives would support corporate entities,” said Tobias of the University of Richmond. “However, I don’t know how that cuts in this particular case. It doesn’t have to be political, but you can’t disentangle politics from this particular dispute.”
In addition to Disney’s claim that DeSantis violated the company’s free speech rights, the lawsuit claims his administration has violated constitutional rights to due process, contract protections and private property restitution.
“I think their First Amendment (free speech) claim is very strong,” UCLA’s Winkler said. “Other constitutional claims are weaker.”
Tobias said he does not expect the Walker court to hear the case for at least four months. That means the case is likely to unfold in a primary battle that includes DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, who has attacked the governor’s handling of the Disney dispute. These external political and cultural battles almost inevitably have an impact on legal cases, legal experts say.
GW’s Ross said the case could be “complicated by the fact that DeSantis is running for president.”
“It may depend on whether the governor thinks it’s in his interest to remove it from the front page and resolve it (by resolving the case), or whether he wants to be the one attacking ‘woke up’ Disney and California values,” she said. “I guess he wants to put this on the front page. Unless the case is resolved, it’s going to be political primetime.”
This article has been edited to correct the title by Randy Fine