Women Can Proceed As a Class Against Disney

A California state judge has ruled against Disney in a pay equity suit brought by LaRonda Rasmussen, a product development manager at Walt Disney Studios and Karen Moore, who has spent over two decades as a senior copyright administrator for Disney’s Hollywood Records. The suit was subsequently amended to add eight additional women. “Because Disney’s pay practices negatively affect their female co-workers throughout the state, Plaintiffs bring this case as a class action,” states the amended complaint. Disney argued that the women failed to demonstrate that their cases had enough in common with those of potentially thousands of company employees or that the named plaintiffs’ cases were typical of others’ in the class. The ruling that the suit can proceed as a class means Disney will have to defend against allegations of gender-based pay discrimination across numerous corporate divisions. California’s Fair Pay Act prohibits differential pay based on gender or race for “substantially similar work.” The case now enters the discovery phase.