Judge In Disney's Case Against Ron DeSantis Recuses Himself Because Father's Brother's Nephew's Cousin's Former Roommate Owns 30 Shares Of Disney
Judge in Disney-DeSantis throwdown demonstrates commitment to ethics that the Supreme Court couldn't find on a map.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Ron DeSantis’s lawyers are so bad that their only “win” against Disney comes so entirely in spite of their efforts that the judge described their motion as “without merit” in the order (embedded below). But sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, and despite bombing with his motion to disqualify Chief Judge Mark Walker of the Northern District of Florida, the judge managed to find a reason to disqualify himself.
DeSantis, “Rob” to his friends, launched this legal standoff by replacing the board of the local quasi-government governing Disney’s sprawling Disneyworld property holdings. The new board of handpicked DeSantis cronies managed to miss the prior board fully transparently handing over all the entity’s authority to Disney until the death of King Charles III’s last presently living descendent, leaving the new board in charge of an entity with no authority. The new board tried to sue in state court, but DeSantis pushed for a new law undoing the legally executed contracts in violation of the plain text of the Constitution, which then nuked the board’s state case since it rendered that case moot. Meanwhile, Disney filed suit in federal court citing the Contracts Clause and First Amendment concerns.
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DeSantis targeted Disney in retaliation after the company’s former CEO issued tepid, after-the-fact criticism of the governor’s “Don’t Say Gay” initiative. Of course, DeSantis would be careful not to characterize it as some sort of retribution because that would make this an open-and-shut First Amendment issue and terminally undermine any legal defense he has and… OH GOOD GOD, he went ahead and said exactly that in his book.
This guy ostensibly has a law degree. Has anyone actually checked that though? George Santos style?
The case was assigned to Chief Judge Walker, the only non-senior status judge in the Tallahassee courthouse appointed by a Democrat. The crack legal team representing the DeSantis cause sprung into action filing a motion to disqualify. How did that fare?
Defendants’ motion cites cases for their convenient language without acknowledging the chasm between my statements in this case and the conduct at issue in those cases. Without exploring all the other defects in the motion, for the reasons noted above and as thoughtfully outlined in Plaintiff’s response, Defendants’ motion is wholly without merit. In fact, I find the motion is nothing more than rank judge-shopping. Sadly, this practice has become all too common in this district.
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And so the gang that couldn’t shoot straight shoots off their genitals yet again. A disqualification would’ve dropped the case in the lap of Trump-appointed FedSoc judge Allen Winsor, the only other active-status judge in the pool.
But as Gainesville’s own Tom Petty once put it, even the losers get lucky sometimes.
Although Defendant’s motion to disqualify is without merit, I must consider a separate question of whether I should disqualify myself. On Friday, May 26, 2023, I learned, and later confirmed, that a relative within the third degree of relationship owns thirty shares of stock in Plaintiff’s parent corporation, The Walt Disney Company. Upon learning this information, I became obligated to engage in a separate inquiry pursuant to the Code of Conduct for United States Judges to determine if the financial interest of my third-degree relative “could be substantially affected by the outcome of [this] proceeding.”
Chief Judge Walker conducted a sua sponte hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse in the Tallahassee area to find some tangential family member with a whopping $2,700 invested in a multibillion-dollar global media conglomerate and decided this presented enough of a conflict in a case over Disney’s right to run its own firehouse in Orlando to leave the case. For the record, a third degree relative is “a first cousin, great-grandparent, great-aunt, great-uncle, great-niece, great-nephew, great-grandchild, half-aunt, or half-uncle of an individual.” I’m not even sure I have phone numbers for all my first cousins, let alone a solid grasp of their financial portfolios.
But… good for Walker. Faith in the courts took a bruising hit when the WSJ uncovered over 150 judges failing to recuse themselves despite direct or indirect financial interests in cases and while that story might have less to do with the judiciary’s flagging reputation than Clarence Thomas turning parties with business before the Court as the loosest slots in town, the last thing the federal system needs is another revelation that judges botched basic ethical obligations. The Chief Justice could take a lesson from the Chief Judge.
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I am confident that my colleagues on this Court can preside over the remainder of this case and judge it fairly and wisely.
And with that, the case has now been transferred to Judge Winsor. It shouldn’t matter which administration nominates a judge in a straightforward legal dispute. That doesn’t always work out — especially in Florida — but while the DeSantis team might’ve preferred a Trump judge on this case, it might not improve their fortunes much. The DeSantis team worked hard to build a putrid factual record for themselves in this case… and the facts aren’t even as bad as the law.
So congratulations to the DeSantis lawyers on winning the litigation equivalent of a participation trophy. When you wish upon a star, amiright?
Earlier: Disney Lawyers Seem Honestly Shocked That Ron DeSantis Legal Team Is So Bad At This
Disney Litigators Take Their Turn Beating The Hell Out Of Ron DeSantis With New Federal Lawsuit
Disney’s Lawyers Are Better Than Ron DeSantis’s Lawyers
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
