It appears Disney is facing some legal woes again. This time their Disney Vacation Club branch is being sued by Nicole Wickens, the owner of Validus Construction Services. According to the Orlando Sentinel this lawsuit is over “unspecified damages for breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation.”

Apparently this all started over a fire code violation that the DVC branch received during the renovations, causing delays and increased costs for the Disney Vacation Club.

According to Disney the timeline for the project was several months from April 2019 until November.  Early into the project the construction crews found the “fire code” issue. But as the lawsuit points out, “This life-safety issue existed at the property for more than 15 years without having previously been corrected by Disney.”

Upon discovery Wickens claims that instead of extending the project timeline to deal with the issues they “denied the change orders to address the defect” to keep the work on schedule. She also claims in the lawsuit that “Disney has refused to accept any responsibility for its own project management problems.”  Delays were caused by Disney’s own mistakes but they didn’t pay her for the expenses associated with the issues. Wickens also claims that Disney made changes to the work without making the proper adjustments to the time allotment or the cost.

When the Walt Disney World parks closed in mid-March, she was told that they were suspending the work on Saratoga Springs. This was something that other contractors have reported as well.  Other subcontractors are also filing lawsuits due to non-payment by Disney. The Walt Disney Company has lost billions, so I’m not surprised by this at all. Even their guests have a waiting period to get refunds for their trips.

Disney terminated the contract with Validus Construction Services without notice in April of this year. A couple of months later they hired a new company to finish the project for more money.

Here’s what the Orlando Sentinel said:

“..Disney later issued a letter of intent in June to a new general contractor to finish the project for $13 million more than Validus’ original deal. The new contractor had previously been a Validus subcontractor for the project.”

To add insult to injury, Nicole Wickens allegedly received “misogynistic comments,” and memes from Disney’s construction team and was called inappropriate names by Disney’s project manager, John Gavin.

If you check out the article on the Orlando Sentinel you can see some examples of the messages and names Wickens was called.

What do you think? Comment and let us know!

Source: Orlando Sentinel