Walt Disney Co. has agreed to pay $43.3 million to resolve a long-running lawsuit brought by a group of female employees who alleged gender pay discrimination at the Burbank entertainment giant.
The proposed settlement was filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Disney did not admit fault as part of the settlement. The company has long rejected allegations that it paid women less than their male counterparts and has asserted the case conflated the experiences of a small group of women to cast doubt on the company’s pay practices.
“We have always been committed to paying our employees fairly and have demonstrated that commitment throughout this case,” a Disney spokesperson said in a statement. “We are pleased to have resolved this matter.”
In addition to setting up a fund to pay plaintiffs, Disney has agreed to hire an “industrial/organizational psychologist” to provide training to Disney executives overseeing the organization of jobs. Disney also said it would hire an outside labor economist to perform a pay equity analysis of certain positions for three years, according to the settlement document.
The lawsuit began in April 2019 with two women — LaRonda Rasmussen and Karen Moore — in Southern California and eventually swelled to nine who alleged they were being paid substantially less than men who were performing similar duties. Despite Disney’s objections, a Superior Court judge granted class-action status to a portion of the case last December, allowing the named plaintiffs to represent thousands of other women who work at Disney and bring their claims under California’s Equal Pay Act.
More than 14,000 women are eligible for a portion of the award, according to the settlement document.
The class was drawn to include “women who have been or will be employed by a Disney-Related Company in California, between April 1, 2015, and December 28, 2024, below the level of Vice President, and in a salaried, full-time, non-union position,” according to the settlement document. ESPN, Hulu, Pixar and former 21st Century Fox employees who joined Disney, including within the FX and National Geographic units, were excluded from the class.
In addition to distributions to class members, the settlement proceeds would cover administration costs and attorneys’ fees. “None of the funds shall revert back to Defendants,” the proposed settlement said.
In July, attorneys representing the plaintiffs and Disney participated in a mediation process that led to the eventual settlement. The sessions followed a failed attempt at mediation two years ago.
“This $43.25 million, non-reversionary Settlement will provide Class Members with a substantial payment for their claims, as well as meaningful non-monetary relief for current and future employees, without the risks of continued litigation,” plaintiffs’ attorney James Kan wrote in Monday’s proposed settlement order.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys have long maintained that discrimination was baked into the system because Disney hired women at lower salaries, which established a pattern in which women continued to be underpaid even as they advanced in the company. Their pay was often based on what a previous employer had provided, and Disney allegedly did not correct for such preexisting pay disparities.
San Francisco attorney Lori Andrus first brought the suit. Two other law firms — Cohen Milstein and Goldstein Borgen Dardarian & Ho — eventually joined the case to represent the plaintiffs.
Rasmussen worked as a manager in product development for Disney in Glendale and raised an issue with management that she was not being compensated fairly, alleging that men who held the same title as she were paid from $16,000 to nearly $40,000 more a year, according to the lawsuit.
Months after Rasmussen brought up the issue, she said in the initial complaint that Disney adjusted her salary amount but said the differential “was not due to gender.”
Moore was based in Burbank, working as a senior copyright administrator. In the lawsuit, Moore said she had been discouraged from applying for a manager position.
L.A. County Judge Elihu M. Berle must approve the settlement.
