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Credit: Inside the MagicFans are flooding social media with their thoughts after U.S. District Court Judge Allen Winsor dismissed The Walt Disney Company’s lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (CFTOD). A spokesperson for the former Republican presidential candidate declared victory over the “Corporate Kingdom” just hours later.
Disney promised to move forward and appeal the First Amendment-based lawsuit. The corporation filed suits against DeSantis and the CFTOD in 2023, accusing the Florida legislature of illegally retaliating against its condemnation of the Parental Rights in Education Act (“Don’t Say Gay”). After Disney condemned the controversial legislation in 2022, DeSantis dissolved Walt Disney World Resort’s Reedy Creek Improvement District and created the CFTOD. He hand-selected board members to control the municipal area and threatened further harmful actions like building a private prison near the Disney park.
As Disney prepares to appeal, fans shared their thoughts on the legal decision online. As one might expect, many diehard aficionados sided with The Walt Disney Company. Many felt that DeSantis clearly stated he intended to retaliate against the company and didn’t have the right to dissolve an agreement dating back to 1967. As CEO Bob Iger argued, Disney is just one of many businesses in Florida with special districts.
“Some people are justifying it by saying RCID was wrong. And maybe it was, I don’t know,” u/jeanvaljean_24601 wrote on Reddit. “However, the fact of the matter is that RCID was the prevailing arrangement between Disney and the state of Florida. DeSantis changed this because of a public position the company took…A state government retaliating against a corporate citizen for expressing an opinion is total and unacceptable bulls**t.”
“It may be over 50 years later now, but a deal is a deal, and if that was part of the enticement to get them to build here, it is not fair to rip the rug out from under them after they have made millions in investments,” u/Adventurous-Part5981 agreed.
Judge Winsor wrote in his ruling that because nothing was unconstitutional about the law that dissolved the Reedy Creek Improvement District, The Walt Disney Company had no legal standing to criticize the motivations for the legislation. Many fans took issue with this precedent.
“For the judge to… say that you can’t look at a motivation of a law is disturbing to me a precedent in general,” said u/kalsytia1983. “Taking myself out of this situation I can see many many instances where that could start becoming incredibly dangerous.”
“Interesting so… He has hurt Disney by doing this, but he’s allowed to and done this to other districts in the past… That also said you [can’t] use his words to say ‘he did it to me because of this,’”.,” u/Silcon_Knight echoed. “…[It’s] not the same but in my head I [can’t] seem to get out ‘Yes, Timmy slapped you, but he’s slapped a lot of kids and no just because you said he called you a poo-poo face that does not mean he was at fault.’”
A few fans agreed with the judge’s decision, arguing that as the largest employer in Florida, The Walt Disney Company has held too much power for too long.
“Setting up or dissolving a special district, which is a local government, is well within the Constitutional authority of the state government,” u/Mnemorath wrote. “In fact you could say that dissolving a corrupt government that had been captured by a corporation to the point where district employees thought they were entitled to employee benefits from said corporation is a legal REQUIREMENT by the state! …They lost their ability to control the government that was supposed to oversee them.”
“What DeSantis did was perfectly legal and should have been done long ago,” u/skelow401 agreed.
Should The Walt Disney Company’s lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have been dismissed? Share your thoughts with Inside the Magic in the comments.