Disney, Restaurant Group Beat Non-Italian Workers’ Bias Lawsuit

Two former servers at Italian-themed restaurants in Walt Disney Parks and Resorts U.S. Inc.‘s Epcot park can’t go forward with a proposed class action alleging race and national origin discrimination.

Dahyana Cosme and Timothy Gocklin failed with their unlawful firing claims in part because they challenged the same “policy of hiring culturally authentic servers” that had previously been upheld as legal, the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida said. It cited the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s 2007 decision in Gupta v. Walt Disney World Co.

According to Cosme and Gocklin, they worked ...