Gina Carano may no longer be fighting the Galactic Empire on The Mandalorian but her battle against Disney is still ongoing.
The lawsuit filed by the Elite XC and Strikeforce veteran is moving ahead with a trial looming after Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett denied a motion from Disney to dismiss the case. Garnett issued her ruling in a 23-page judgment on Wednesday.
“In sum, Defendants have failed to set forth an “impenetrable defense” under the First Amendment,” Garnett wrote in her ruling. ”Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, the Court denies Defendants’ Motion.”
The lawsuit, filed by Carano and backed by Twitter owner Elon Musk, comes after the fighter-turned-actor was terminated from her role as Cara Dune in the popular Star Wars spinoff series following a string of controversial messages posted on her social media accounts.
Lucasfilm, the studio owned by Disney that runs the Star Wars universe, issued a statement back in 2021 saying that Carano was “not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future.”
The studio also denounced social media posts from Carano, which included a message that seemingly compared living as a conservative in the United States to the atrocities suffered by the Jewish people during the holocaust in Nazi Germany.
“Her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable,” Lucasfilm said in the statement.
Carano was removed from her recurring character status in The Mandalorian along with plans for a future series called Rangers of the New Republic, which did not end up moving forward at Disney. Her agents at UTA also dropped her as a client.
In the initial lawsuit filed against Disney, Carano argued that she was bullied on social media and Disney/Lucasfilm harassed her over her views regarding Black Lives Matter, her problems with gender pronouns, and for rallying against mandates issued during the COVID-19 pandemic. Carano also claimed that Disney took no action against her male co-stars, who she argued also made controversial statements on social media but faced no reprisal as a result.
Carano is seeking to have her role on The Mandalorian reinstated along with a sum of at least $75,000 and punitive damages as a result of her firing.
That led to Disney filing for the motion to dismiss “on the grounds that Disney has a constitutional right not to associate its artistic expression with Carano’s speech, such that the First Amendment provides a complete defense to Carano’s claims.”
Apparently, the judge disagreed with the argument.
With Disney’s motion to dismiss denied, Carano’s lawsuit is moving ahead to trial unless the two parties come to a financial settlement before a jury actually hears the case. Given the public nature of a potential trial, a settlement seems likely, but it remains to be seen how hard Disney will continue to fight this case.
