Attorneys for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have proposed a trial date for the lawsuit filed by the Walt Disney Company that would take place after the 2024 Presidential election, according to Deadline.
What’s Happening:
- Disney and their attorneys proposed a trial start date of July 15th, 2024.
- Attorneys for DeSantis and members of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board want it put off to August 4th, 2025, after next year’s presidential election, according to a court filing.
- This is, of course, because DeSantis is a candidate for the Republican nomination for President.
- DeSantis and the other defendants also want the discovery process in the case — one that will include extensive collection of documents and depositions — to be put on hold until a judge rules on his motion to dismiss the case, as well as a motion filed by the district board.
- “The scope of discovery will be dictated by the claims that remain following the disposition of those motions, if any,” the defendants’ attorneys wrote.
- Disney argued that staying discovery “will cause substantial harm.”
- In the most recent filing, Disney offered a bit of a response to the motions to dismiss, arguing that they were “unlikely to be granted.” The company’s legal team wrote that defendants “ignore precedent establishing that a court may consider a legislature’s retaliatory motive in adjudicating a challenge to a targeted act of retaliation.”
- The company also argued that DeSantis has “an instrumental role” in the appointment and ongoing supervision of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, which Disney referred to as “an unlawfully constituted government entity.”