Disney filed a motion opposing attempts by lawyers for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to disqualify Judge Mark Walker from presiding over a pending lawsuit between the two parties in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
Lawyers for the entertainment giant accused DeSantis’s lawyers of employing “a misapprehension of the law and a misstatement of the facts” over their motion to disqualify the judge. The comments came in a filing on Thursday.
WHITE HOUSE NOT BUDGING ON WORK REQUIREMENTS, CAUSING AN IMPASSE IN NEGOTIATIONS
“As this Court, others in the District, and the Eleventh Circuit have emphasized, that standard establishes a high bar to disqualification —otherwise, parties could too easily use § 455(a) to effectively veto judges whose decisions they do not like and shop for a judge more to their liking,” the filing said.
“The two comments defendants cite provide no basis on which a reasonable, fully-informed person could perceive any risk — much less a significant risk — that the Court’s mind is closed and that it is incapable of fair and dispassionate inquiry into the legal and factual issues in this case. Both comments were merely brief, illustrative examples used to frame hypothetical questions about different issues,” the filing said.
DeSantis’s lawyers had alleged that Walker called the Florida governor’s actions against Disney retaliation in comments he made in Link v. Corcoran and Falls v. DeSantis in a filing last week.
Walker was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida by President Barack Obama in 2012 and has served as the chief judge for the district court since 2018.
On Monday, the parties proposed a schedule for the defendants to file a motion to dismiss, along with subsequent responses, but Walker in a notice on Tuesday, ordered “no action, scheduling or otherwise, in this case until it rules on the pending motion for disqualification.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Disney filed the lawsuit in April, arguing DeSantis and other Sunshine State officials had pursued a “relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain State officials.”
The feud between DeSantis and the company, which led to Disney’s central Florida district being restructured, stemmed from Disney denouncing the Parental Rights in Education Act, which DeSantis signed into law last year. Disney had previously maintained full autonomy over the district since its creation in 1967.
