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Unless there is a shift in the legal Force or a big bucks settlement, the Walt Disney Company and Gina Carano will go head-to-head at trial next year over the former mixed martial artist’s 2021 firing from The Mandalorian.
That trial will start on September 29, 2025, to be specific.
After having beaten the Mouse House and its Daniel Petrocelli-led legal team’s move earlier this year to get her Elon Musk-backed sex discrimination and wrongful dismissal suit tossed, Carano this week scored another winner with a federal judge denying Disney’s desire for a stay of proceedings and interlocutory appeal.
“Having considered the parties’ submissions, the relevant law, and the record in this case, the Court DENIES the Motion,” US District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett wrote earlier this week. In refusing to give the green light to Disney’s hopes of taking the matter to another court and overturning her July 24 decision rejecting their motion for dismissal, Judge Garnett has set the clock ticking on the trial.
In fact, with her over previous ruling being challenged by the very nature of Disney’s latest motion and desire for an appeal, Judge Garnett made sure to knock down any notion Disney and its outside counsel may or may not have had of getting the upper hand.
“Defendants do not, however, explain how a Ninth Circuit opinion affirming the Court’s Order would alleviate the burden of responding to the discovery Plaintiff has propounded to date, nor is it apparent to the Court how such a decision could provide such relief,” she writes in the 10-page order. “In any event, arguments regarding discovery—which, the Court notes, were not at issue in the Order—do not appear to have any bearing on the termination of the litigation and do not persuade the Court that certification is appropriate here.”
A.K.A.: Don’t waste my time, we’re all adults here.
In fact, Judge Garnett may have tipped her hand to her take on all this last month when she decided that there would be no need for oral argument on either the appeal certification or the stay by the lawyers. On September 19, the case docket said “no appearance necessary.”
With this new order from Judge Garnett allowing discovery to move forward in the matter, it means Carano and her lawyers will be getting a look soon-ish at what went on internally at Disney three years ago in the lead-up to the on-the-rise actress playing Rebel shock trooper Cara Dune being given the pink slip over views she expressed on social media and otherwise.
Whether or not that leads to the injunction that will get Carano her Mandalorian gig back is a whole other matter. Still, in also seeking a variety of unspecified damages in the case, Carano was taking the win today.
“I am obviously very pleased with the opportunity to keep moving forward with the judicial process and into discovery,” she wrote Thursday on social media of the October 15 order from Judge Garnett. “While I wish this was not necessary as it is not my desire to be in this battle in court. I will not shrink away from it because it is hard or uncomfortable.”
Disney did not respond to request for comment on this latest loss in the Carano case. if the Bob Iger-run media giant does respond, this post will be updated.
In its April 9 dismissal motion against Carano’s February filed suit over being fired from The Mandalorian, Disney insisted, as it had before, that the ex-martial arts fighter lost her hight profile Star Wars series gig in three years ago because of her decision “to publicly trivialize the Holocaust by comparing criticism of political conservatives to the annihilation of millions of Jewish people — notably, not ‘thousands’ — was the final straw for Disney.”
After portraying fan fave bounty hunter Cara Dune for two seasons on The Mandalorian, this all came to a breaking point Disney it seems when Carano shared a TikTok post in 2021 that looked to compare the current divided political climate in America to Nazi Germany.
Responding in May, Carano’s Schaerr Jaffe lawyers said: “After admitting that they discriminated against Carano for her personal political beliefs and subjected her to disparate treatment from her similarly situated male co-stars, The Walt Disney Company, Lucasfilm LTD, and Huckleberry Industries (collectively, “Defendants”) assert that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives them absolute immunity.”
“Defendants are incorrect.”
Clearly, to some small degree at least, Judge Garnett agrees.
