Disney on Thursday appealed a judge’s dismissal of its free speech lawsuit over what it described as retaliation by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Walt Disney World’s governing district, as Florida’s governor separately called any appeal as “a mistake.”
“They should move forward,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Jacksonville a day after the ruling.
Disney filed a notice of appeal over Wednesday’s ruling by a federal judge in Tallahassee, saying it would set a dangerous precedent if left unchallenged by giving states the green light to weaponize their powers to punish opposing views. A separate lawsuit over who controls the district is also pending in state court in Orlando.
Disney had argued that legislation signed by DeSantis and passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature that transferred control of Disney World’s governing district from Disney supporters to DeSantis appointees was retaliation for the company’s public opposition to the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. The 2022 law banned classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades and was championed by DeSantis, who had used Disney as a punching bag in speeches during the election campaign until he recently suspended his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Disney said it would set a dangerous precedent if it went unchallenged by giving states the green light to weaponize their powers to punish opposing views. CRISTÓBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Disney supporters had run the district, which provides municipal services such as firefighting, planning and mosquito control, for more than five decades after the Legislature created it in 1967.
In dismissing the free speech case, U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor said Disney lacked standing in its claims against DeSantis and the secretary of a Florida state agency, and that the company’s claim had no merit against the people appointed by DeSantis to the Disney World governing district board.
Winsor wrote that when a law is constitutional, plaintiffs cannot bring free speech claims challenging it because they believe lawmakers acted with unconstitutional motives. The law that renewed the Disney World district did not single out Disney by name but rather special districts created before the ratification of the Florida Constitution, a group that included the Disney district and a handful of other districts, he said.
“They should move forward,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference in Jacksonville a day after the ruling. AP
Experts diverged on the success of a Disney appeal: some said an important issue raised by the decision will have to be addressed in the appeals court and others believed the dispute should have been resolved politically rather than litigated.
“Maybe Disney should put pressure back on and write checks,” said Richard Foglesong, a professor emeritus at Rollins College who wrote a definitive account of Disney World governance in his book, “Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando.” .
“As the judge’s ruling shows, they were wrong to use the courts to resolve a political issue,” Foglesong said Thursday. “Everyone knows that the Legislature’s law was retaliation against Disney. “It just wasn’t demonstrable by legal standards.”
Asked in an email to comment on the judge’s decision, Orlando attorney Jacob Schumer, who followed the case, pointed to a social media post he made Wednesday after the decision. The appeals court will have to address whether a law is singling out an entity even if it is not directly named but meets the criteria for what is being sought, he said in the post.
“I still think they’re going to be uncomfortable with being left in a loophole that basically says you can freely retaliate for speech by specifying a party by objective criteria rather than by name,” Schumer said of the appeals court.
Experts disagreed about how successful Disney’s appeal will be. AP
Before control of the district passed from Disney allies to DeSantis appointees early last year, Disney supporters on its board signed agreements with Disney transferring control over design and construction at Disney World to the company. DeSantis’ new appointees claimed the “last-minute agreements” neutered their powers, and the district sued the company in state court in Orlando to void the contracts.
Disney has filed countersuits that include asking the state court to declare the agreements valid and enforceable.
Disney on Wednesday renewed its request for a six-month pause in the state court lawsuit, saying it had been unable to make a deposition from the new district administrator allied to DeSantis and obtain documents from the district controlled by DeSantis.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn