ORLANDO, Fla. – Two employees of The Walt Disney Company who relocated from California to Central Florida before Disney abruptly canceled its proposed $1 billion Lake Nona campus are suing their employer for what they allege was misrepresentation.
Maria De La Cruz and George Fong sold their homes in Southern California and moved to the Orlando area after Disney announced in 2021 that the company would be relocating at least 2,000 employees to a new regional campus the entertainment company planned to build in Lake Nona, according to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Last May, while Disney was battling Gov. Ron DeSantis in court over changes made to the former Reedy Creek Improvement District and Robert Iger, who had just returned as CEO following the ouster of Bob Chapek, was eliminating 7,000 jobs to cut costs, the company revealed the Lake Nona campus had been canceled.
“Since we first announced this project, several dynamics have changed, including a change in company leadership and evolving economic and business conditions,” Walt Disney World President Jeff Vahle said at the time.
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In their lawsuit, De La Cruz and Fong accuse Disney of inducing California employees to relocate by intentionally misrepresenting facts related to the Orlando campus.
“(My) firm filed a class action complaint seeking to represent all Disney employees who were uprooted from their families, homes, and communities as a result of the Lake Nona project for, as it turns out, no reason whatsoever,” said Jason S. Lohr, the plaintiffs’ attorney. “Disney was not transparent with these employees, and many of them are still struggling with the impact of moving from California to Florida.”
Disney representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
De La Cruz, who works for Disney as a vice president of product design, sold her Southern California home in 2022 and purchased a house in Central Florida, according to the lawsuit. She plans to return to the company’s Glendale, California office after completing the sale of her Belle Isle home this month.
Fong, a creative director of product design, also purchased a house in the Orlando area after making the “painful decision” to sell his childhood home in California that he inherited, the lawsuit alleges.
After selling his Florida home this spring, Fong returned to the West Coast and closed on a home in South Pasadena with significantly less square footage than his previous California home, according to the lawsuit.
“Home prices in the Los Angeles, California area had increased significantly between the summer of 2022 and the summer of 2023,” the lawsuit states. “Mortgage rates had also increased significantly, making it impossible for Plaintiffs and other similarly situated individuals to obtain housing comparable to the homes they had sold in connection with the transfer of their roles to Lake Nona.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
“The unfortunate irony is that the employees most harmed by this episode were Disney’s most loyal employees,” Lohr told News 6. “Disney needs to make this right for their best and most loyal employees.”
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