In this video Deadmau5 claims that:
There are parts of Disney that actually sue other parts of Disney, and win.
Is this true and what are the details of these court cases?
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7This wouldn't be surprising. I work for a company that has subcompanies that are independent of each other (they're actually legally not allowed to share finances and certain information) and theoretically they could stand to gain from suing each other. – Matt Samuel Apr 03 '18 at 07:07
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It is possible that Deadmau5 is referring to a 2004 lawsuit between Roy Disney and the Walt Disney Company.
The one lawsuit I could find was from 2004, Roy E. DISNEY, Plaintiff, v. The WALT DISNEY COMPANY, Defendant.
A stockholder (Roy Disney) who obtained books and records of a Delaware corporation (The Walt Disney Company) for the purpose of investigating suspicions or mismanagement or waste of corporate assets now wishes to publicly disseminate certain information found in those documents as part of that stockholder's ongoing campaign to effect changes in the corporation's senior management.
Roy Disney, nephew to founder Walt Disney was a stockholder of the company, holding a non-insignificant number of shares of the company itself (Wikipedia reports it as approximately 1% of the company at the time of his death, but the citation link is broken.) In 2004, upset at the results of a shareholder election, Mr. Disney sued The Walt Disney Company for access to voting records in the board election and the right to disseminate the information.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the former director asked a Delaware court to require that the company provide him with “documents, records, proxies, and ballots” from Disney’s annual meeting, held in Philadelphia in March.
Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, another dissident ex-director of the company, led a protest at that meeting in which 43 percent of votes were withheld from Disney chief executive officer Michael Eisner, who was running unopposed for reelection as chairman of the board of directors.
Votes for Eisner were also withheld by Calpers — the nation’s largest pension fund — and by shareholders who followed the guidance of Institutional Shareholder Services. On the evening following the annual meeting, Disney’s board removed Eisner from his role as chairman and handed that position to former senator George Mitchell, at the time Disney’s chief independent director.
Mr. Disney, at the time, was engaged in his second "Save Disney" campaign, going so far as to launch the (now defunct) website SaveDisney.com (Example Snapshot from Wayback Machine 02 Feb 2005) (Wayback Machine Archive of SaveDisney.com). Mr. Disney believed that the company was headed in the opposite direction and was drifting, as seen in this letter written to the board of directors in Sept 2004.
Michael Eisner’s announcement that he intends to remain CEO for the next two years forces you to make a critical decision. Will you choose to let the Company drift for two more years – allowing the pall Mr. Eisner has cast to continue to drive the most talented and creative people away from Disney, erode the morale of current employees, and prevent the Company from attracting the strong, dynamic, and creative leader it needs? Or will you reject Mr. Eisner’s brazen attempt to usurp your responsibilities as directors by stage-managing the appointment of his anointed successor and instead tangibly show your commitment to best corporate practices by immediately initiating an expeditious and broad search for a world-class CEO?
