Disney asks court to throw out the DeSantis Central Florida Tourism Oversight District lawsuit

Posted: Tuesday May 16, 2023 3:00pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

The Walt Disney Company has filed a motion with a judge to dismiss or stay the state lawsuit brought about by the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District which was appointed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Disney says CFTOD lawsuit must wait until Disney's federal case against Governor DeSantis is resolved

Disney argues that recent actions taken by the state have rendered the litigation irrelevant. Disney also says that Florida law mandates the state court to put the lawsuit on hold until the company's federal case against Governor Ron DeSantis is resolved.

In the motion filed in Florida state court, Disney's lawyers argue that the federal action Disney filed against DeSantis last month involves similar parties and overlapping issues, and the federal case should be the primary court for resolving the dispute.

Disney's federal April 26, 2023 lawsuit was filed in response to Governor DeSantis' attempts to replace the Reedy Creek Improvement District with his own hand-picked board. Disney's lawsuit says that DeSantis' actions violated its First Amendment and other constitutional rights, alleging they were motivated by retaliation due to the company's opposition to the so-called "don't say gay" law related to parental rights in schools.

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JoeCamel6 days ago

Welllllll....

JKick956 days ago

Do we have any updates on what this plan entails?

MR.Dis20 days ago

To give an example, I am retired from JP Morgan Chase, the provider of Disney Visa charge cards. I was eligible to purchase WDW and Disneyland tickets thru a portal for 20% off the rack rate. I do not know if that is still the case. While I was an annual pass holder purchasing thru DVC, I would purchase tickets for my kids when they visited WDW with their families. It was a significant savings.

flyakite20 days ago

Should anyone be interested and would like to attend:

michmousefanDec 29, 2024

cranbizDec 28, 2024

Not really a distortion of facts. Yes, RCID was a legally a separate entity from TWDC. In reality, it was controlled by WDW, which is why DeSantis had a hard on for getting revenge on TWDC for "don't say gay" and other woke policies by trying to revoke the district. He couldn't do that for many reasons so he got the law changed to appoint his own governing board. As we know, that really did fail miserably and there is now a board that is not antagonistic towards Disney. There is a charge for those benefits to the third party entities in some way, shape or form. WDW doesn't give anything away for free. RCID (and many third party operating participants) pay for those benefits (usually at a very reduced rate). So, in the case of RCID, Disney paid for those benefits through it's tax assessments because RCID has no income of it's own except for income received from it's taxpayers (of which TWDC is it's largest and majority taxpayer). So, what I said was true. WDW paid for the benefits granted by RCID to it's employees and RCID, by granting those benefits paid WDW back for them. This keeps everything legal. Yes, CFTOD wanted to stick it to Disney by refusing to pay WDW for those benefits, which in turn stuck it to the employees. RCID and CFTOD employees were never WDW Cast Members, they were employees of RCID or are/were employees of CFTOD.

LAKid53Dec 28, 2024

It takes little time to release a completed report. Unless that report didn't say exactly what you wanted it to say....

LAKid53Dec 28, 2024

Governor's office receives a FOIA (govt in the Sunshine) request... "What's sunshine?" 🙄

LAKid53Dec 28, 2024

🤫

LAKid53Dec 28, 2024

Florida statute says state records are open to the public. It doesn't say how quickly agencies have to provide the info. When I worked for various state agencies, we tried getting the requested info as quickly as possible. If it was a state legislator or governor's office, yesterday wasn't fast enough. 😉

LAKid53Dec 28, 2024

Bingo

Chi84Dec 28, 2024

So they had to ferret it out as opposed to the government releasing it to the news agencies. That’s understandable. Those requests can take a surprisingly long time to fulfill.

StripesDec 28, 2024

WKMG submitted a public records request. That request was just recently fulfilled and the document released. WKMG hasn’t said when they submitted the request.

UnbansheeDec 28, 2024

Lol, you must be new here. The state doesn't like to "live in the sunshine" when it comes to matters that the esteemed governor finds personally difficult