Ex-21st Century Fox VP Wins Severance for Disney Merger Job Loss

A former Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. vice president who says she was fired after declining to switch jobs following a merger with Walt Disney Co. is entitled to severance benefits, a California federal judge ruled.

The Disney severance plan administrator abused its discretion by failing to address or credit Bernadette Paine’s evidence suggesting that her 2019 termination was involuntary, Judge Virginia A. Phillips of the US District Court for the Central District of California held Tuesday. And the administrator can’t argue in court that it properly considered this evidence, because it didn’t explain that to Paine in the course of ...