Monday afternoon, the legal counsel for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis filed a Motion to Dismiss the federal lawsuit Disney World filed against him in April of this year. The suit claims that DeSantis is using his government standing to retaliate against and penalize Disney for exercising its First Amendment rights.
The 27-page Motion to Dismiss requests that the court drop the entire complaint or, at the very least, dismiss the claims against the State Defendants. The State says that DeSantis and the Secretary of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity are both “immune from suit” as the court lacks jurisdiction over those two defendants.
The State also claims that Disney lacks standing to sue either of them as they don’t enforce any of the laws Disney is taking issue with. The State claims legislative immunity for DeSantis as well.
In the motion, the State argues that the Reedy Creek Improvement District deal (made in 1967) offered Disney “carte blanche to govern itself” and that they pushed “a series of collusive agreements between itself and its puppet RCID board” in the “waning days of the corporate kingdom.” The State calls Disney’s claims of retaliation from DeSantis “meritless for many reasons.”
You can read the full motion below.
