Although the two are battling in the Republican primary polls, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump share something in common — they’re both embroiled in lawsuits, and their words and actions leading up to their legal dilemmas may soon haunt them.
After a year of DeSantis’ public attacks on Walt Disney Co DIS, the company filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the governor to stop his administration from terminating Disney’s virtual independence in central Florida, according to Reuters.
In the lawsuit, the Bob Iger-led company accuses DeSantis of politically motivated retaliation for Disney’s stance against the governor’s decision to ban lessons on sexuality and gender for students in all grades, according to the outlet.
What The Experts Are Saying
“There’s a very good chance that [DeSantis] is going to pay for (his attacks) in a court of law,” Ken Paulson, a professor at Middle Tennessee State University and director of its Free Speech Center, told Reuters.
Leslie Kendrick, director of the Center for the First Amendment at University of Virginia School of Law, agreed with Paulson, saying that the outcome of the case would hinge on why the governor was working to take control of Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District.
“First Amendment law would say that is problematic if it’s done because of the speaker’s protected speech,” Kendrick told Reuters.
DeSantis has repeatedly hit back at Disney for opposing his Parental Rights in Education Act, more commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, by referring to the company as “woke Disney,” according to Reuters.
A spokesperson for DeSantis told Reuters that they were not aware of any legal basis that permits any corporation to govern itself or maintain exclusive privileges. Though legal experts agreed, they said that Disney has a solid case against the governor if it can prove that DeSantis acted in retaliation, the outlet reported.
Kendrick noted that there is a legal precedent that could hint at the outcome of Disney’s case, citing a 1934 case in which a Louisiana senator worked to impose a tax on 13 media publications after a student newspaper had published information that had been critical of the state’s former governor. The publications sued, and the case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where the justices struck down the law.
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Image and article originally from www.benzinga.com. Read the original article here.