Gosh, I hate rooting for giant corporations, but the Mouse That Roared just pulled off what appears to be a very clever coup.
And despite the fact that it was done publicly, it took FL 6 weeks to find out.
Turns out you can’t fix stupid.
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You’ve been greeted
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Ooops, scanned topics but missed the King Charles reference.
Leave it to my friend Goofy to beat me to the punch.
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A classic case of: You’re for it or against it depending on whose ox is being gored. Do we really want a society where super powerful un-beholden, un-elected, lawyered-up, private property owning business interests control things and tell us what we’re gonna do? Or would we prefer, ya know, some representation in our affairs? Not putting in a good word for the desantis crowd here, and I’m certainly not anti-Disney, but heads-up people.
And that bit about Prince Harry, HA! I am not sure how that will stand up in court because judges are not concerned with the law by and large. But if The Law were to apply the clause will not stand up. There is a word for it in the law but I do not recall it. An obvious trick, trap, or condition that has zilch do to with the matter at hand inserted for no other purpose than to obviate or render defenseless one of the parties. It’s not enforceable. No, it ain’t “poifeckly legal” even though it’s gussied up to look that way. And that’s exactly what this is. King Charles! Indeed! This is what pre-law students do in the evening when they’re tokin’ and dreaming about what slick lawyers they’ll be in 4 more years.
You might not like Desantis and what he represents but this is too important to throw to the Royalists of the Business Class no matter how benign or even helpful they might be in this situation.
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This is a simple case of a government squashing a private entity for disagreeing with what the government is doing. If that isn’t un-American I’m not sure what is. It’s also a case of the government stepping in and trying to control said private entity. And if that is what a conservative government thinks is appropriate, well then we have real troubles. That’s a march towards authoritarianism. And kudos to Disney for standing ground.
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I didn’t say it was perfect. Hence the “ox” metaphor. Most systems have these contradictions. Just what is “freedom” anyway? If one is for or against either side they are asking for trouble.
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Putting aside what the Gov will do to overturn, or ignore, what Reedy Creek did, the principle at risk here is the enforceability of contracts. Disney located in Florida based on an offer made by the state. The Gov has now reneged on the contract by taking Reedy Creek’s authority away from it. It’s like any other state or city giving a company a 30 year tax abatement, then reneging on the tax abatement as soon as the company has sunk a few million into physical facilities. The city of Detroit just granted an $616M/35 year tax package to a group of developers, for a $1.5B development project. If the developers spent their $1.5B in new construction in the city, then the city reneged on the incentives, say, 5 years from now, the developers would be suing for breech of contract in a hot second, and no-one would invest in Detroit again.
The fact that what the Gov did was vindictive in nature, is only icing on the cake.
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I guess it just shows I don’t want DeSantis negotiating my contracts. Or treaties. Or anything, if he is this easily outmaneuvered by a mouse and his pal Goofy.
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I’m thinking the previous board members were in the tank for Disney and agreed to the legal sitcom just to see what happens and let the new team hold the bag. If nothing else it just holds up the proceedings.
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Apparently, the Royal Lives clause is actually a thing. According to Common Law, you can’t have a contract extend into perpetuity. This is a way around that.
I am certain that Disney’s lawyers buttoned this thing up as tight as they could button it. DeSantis might be able to crack it, but it won’t be easy. What I suspect will happen is that Disney will tie this up in the courts for years, and some future governor won’t care to fight DeSantis’ battles for him and the whole thing will go away.
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That’s why I say be careful who you’re rootin’ for. This would, in effect, cause this to run operationally in perpetuity despite common law. Lip motion. Like any law. It is what we say it is. Do we want Big Bizz " I am The Law"? Or, representational government, with all the warts and dirty socks??
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But aren’t both sides playing by the exact same set of rules? The Florida legislature granted the district’s board the ability to set restrictive covenants and rules. If fact, I would guess they are required to do so. One of the rules is the restrictive covenants last a really long time.
If the Florida legislature had previously thought that that workaround of the rule against perpetuities was unfair, then they could have dealt with it at any time in the past (I’m presuming the Disney lawyers used it correctly).
Note: I am not lawyer nor do I play on on TV. Remember how much you paid for my legal opinion.
Edit: An attorney with experience in Florida real estate may be able to shed some actual insight. Cough. @albaby1 Cough.
A repost edited to remove, what I think, might have been the problem. To wit:
[quote=“steve203, post:7, topic:90714”]
The fact that what the Gov did was vindictive in nature, is only icing on the cake.[/quote]
All correct but does not address anything I said. The rudiments of this whole dust-up are, in fact, the personal, turned political vindictiveness of Desantis et al. That is not in dispute. But to paraphrase 2 or 3 different Supreme Court justices in various contexts: The Law is not a suicide pact." That’s what I’m referring to. If Disney wins this contract thing it better not be on that Kind Charles nonsense.
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The Albaby-signal! Quick, to the Albaby-Cave!
Na na na na
First things first - there’s a link to the actual documents we’re talking about at the bottom of this page.
Second - the King Charles clause has been mistakenly described in the press as a clever way around the rule against perpetuities. But it’s not. It’s actually a clever way of complying with the rule. The actual text from the agreement says if a perpetual term is deemed invalid, then the agreement
“shall continue until twenty-one (21) years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, king of England, living as of the date of this agreement.”
This doesn’t mean that the agreement lasts as long as the royal line does. It simply means that it lasts as long as the lifespan of whichever of Charles’ grandkids lives the longest (plus 21 years). It’s a way of describing a really long time without it being perpetual. It probably doesn’t describe all that longer a time frame than the statutory length of time, which in Florida is 90 years (longer for trusts and certain other trustlike instruments, none of which seems relevant here).
It seems weird and quirky (though “royal clauses” are actually not all that rare), so it’s getting a lot of press coverage - but there’s not really much to it. The real legal challenges to these agreements will more likely be based on longstanding common law prohibitions against governmental entities (which Reedy Creek is) contracting away police power.
That said, I think that the media is vastly overstating the significance of the two instruments. The Development Agreement does lock in Disney’s ability to add a fifth theme park and some other development - but that only lasts for thirty years, and doesn’t have any of the details that would keep the RCID 2.0 from really stopping them if they wanted. Because it specifically says that Disney still has to follow the requirements of the RCID’s land development regulations (basically the zoning code), so nothing gets built without RCID approval anyway. And while the Licensing Agreement gives Disney “design review” over any new RCID improvements, they don’t get to approve the substance or purpose of any of them - just that they meet a certain quality of engineering and design and match the resort’s theming, and even then the approval can’t be unreasonably withheld.
In short - probably not a lot of there there.
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That has always been the case. It is not a new thing.
Do we want very immature impulsive creeps destroying our nation? That seems to be on offer as well.
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