Judge Says Disney Didn’t Violate Visa Laws in Layoffs

A federal judge in Florida dealt a blow on Thursday to legal claims by American technology workers who were laid off by the Walt Disney Company and forced to train foreign replacements, dismissing lawsuits by two workers who said Disney had conspired with outsourcing companies to violate visa laws.

In a terse decision, Judge Gregory A. Presnell of the United States District Court in Orlando rejected the former workers’ arguments that Disney and the two contractors had colluded to make false statements when they applied for temporary visas, known as H-1B, for the foreign replacements.

The judge found that “none of the allegedly false statements put at issue in the complaint are adequate” to sustain the former workers’ case. The outsourcing companies that were sued with Disney were Cognizant Technology Solutions and HCL America.

The plaintiffs, Leo Perrero and Dena Moore, were laid off early in 2015 from jobs with Disney in Orlando. In their final weeks on the job, they were required to show foreigners on H-1B visas, brought in by the outsourcing contractors mainly from India, how to do their work.

A spokeswoman for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Jacquee Wahler, said, “As we have said all along, this lawsuit was completely baseless, and we are gratified by the decision.”

The former workers’ cases hinged on their argument that the companies had violated clauses of the visa law requiring employers to show that hiring H-1B workers “will not adversely affect the working conditions” of other workers in similar jobs. The law also requires large outsourcing companies that employ many H-1B workers to certify in some circumstances that those workers “will not displace any similarly employed U.S. worker” within six months of applying for the visa.