Just over six months before the Walt Disney company was scheduled to go to trial in a potentially $300 million pay equity class action, the parties have come to a deal.
As always in these things, details are confidential with a Motion for Preliminary Approval expected to be filed by the plaintiff’s attorneys before November 18. If all goes to plan, the settlement will be addressed and approved in an October 1, 2025 hearing in LA Superior Court before Judge Elihu M. Berle.
A dead letter office now, a May 5, 2025 trial was put on the court calendar back in June.
Initiated by Disney staffers LaRonda Rasmussen and Karen Moore in April 2019, the suit alleged that the then and now Bob Iger-run company knowingly violated the Fair Employment & Housing Act and California’s Equal Pay Act by paying female employees less than male employees.
Neither Disney reps nor plaintiffs’ lead lawyer Lori Andrus responded to request for comment from Deadline on the tentative settlement, which was first revealed in a DTLA hearing on October 1. However, while the pay out to the class of over 9,000 women across the Mouse House empire isn’t up around the $300 million mark, the final sum is in the high eight figures a the very least, I hear.
That’s a far cry from Disney’s insistence in October 2029 that “The Disney Companies categorically deny that they pay any female employee less than her similarly situated male coworkers and will vigorously defend themselves against each Plaintiff’s individual claims.”
“But that is all this case is–an assortment of individual claims, based on highly individualized allegations,” Disney’s outside attorneys at Paul Hasting LLP added in words that might feel a little too harsh now, all things considered.
Certified as a class action in December 2023, the gender-centric case was anticipated to encapsulate to 12,000 female Disney employees. As the parties fought over discovery and document requests, a formal class notice was issued on April 25 this year and sent out to probable plaintiffs via regular mail and email.
The case was estimated to encompass up to $150 million in lost wages from 2015 to today. The class certification doubled that estimation.
With the tentative settlement, first reported by Puck, it is worth pointing out the class action and any compensation does not include women employed at Hulu, ESPN, Pixar and previously Fox assets like FX or National Geographic.
Bouncing on a stock up 11% this year so far, Disney issues its Q4 earnings on November 14. Having rolled out a 2025 slate of Thunderbolts, Captain America: Brave New World and more in the past week, Iger will surely have a lot to talk about. This now cauterized suit will almost certainly not be something the past and current CEO wants to get into, at least not until it is a 100% done deal.
At least Iger can take credit privately for getting this case off the table before the new Disney CEO takes over right at the end of 2026, whoever that might be.
