Disney has filed a new Motion to Compel Discovery, this time targeting the office of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Earlier today, Disney had a hearing over a similar topic against the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, but this new filing zeroes in on the Governor. This action is taken within the scope of the state-level case, and not the federal case against DeSantis.
In the Motion, which was filed yesterday, Disney says that DeSantis’ office has failed to produce even a single document or even commit to a date to produce Discovery following an October 12, 2023 subpoena. Disney says that the governor’s office “has repeatedly claimed an inability to conduct, or even understand, standard document searching…and relied on excuses that are as inconsistent as they are unbelievable”.
In one example, Disney says that DeSantis’ office said that there were over 3 million documents responsive to Disney’s request, but then walked that number back, and even said that it didn’t know who the custodians of the 3 million documents were. Disney says that DeSantis’ office pulled that number out of thin air. The actual number was closer to 45,000 – just 1.5% of the initial estimate.
Now, after months of delay, Disney says that DeSantis’ office will rely on targets of the subpoena to “self-select” which documents they think might be relevant. Disney says that this is “utterly at odds with the law – and common sense”. Disney accuses the Governor of “obstructionist conduct”, saying that his office has provided “excuse after excuse”.
Critically, the Governor’s office has excluded one very important person from its searches – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis himself. Disney says that the Governor’s office refuses to search DeSantis’ inbox.
Disney says that it “cannot afford to continue engaging in trench-warfare discovery negotiations to learn very basic details about records”, and has asked the court to compel the Governor’s office to comply with the subpoena. Specifically, Disney is asking the court to:
- Compel DeSantis’ office to provide a “search-hit report” for DeSantis’ email inbox
- Compel DeSantis’ office to provide a reasonable discovery plan
- Compel DeSantis’ office to produce all documents responsive to the subpoena within 7-14 days
Disney provided a background on the efforts of DeSantis’ office to stonewall discovery, from taking more than a month to execute even a single search, to inflated document totals, to excluding required document types. Disney says that DeSantis’ office plans to “indefinitely frustrate” Disney’s discovery efforts, and that court intervention is necessary.
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