- Disney is agreeing to make individual payments to people who had a "Magic Key" pass to their parks.
- The lawsuit arose when Magic Key pass-holders could not go to Disney parks on certain dates.
After over a year and a half of litigation, Disney is agreeing to pay out settlements to people who purchased Magic Key park passes in 2021.
The class action lawsuit was filed by Jenale Nielsen in Dec. 2021 in the Supreme Court of California in Orange County after she bought her Dream Key for visits to the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.
Shortly after Nielsen bought her Dream Key pass for almost $1,400, she found out the pass description wasn't all she'd imagined — despite the promise of no blackout dates, over half of the days in the month she wanted to visit, November 2021, were unavailable.
After more research, Nielsen found that there were still new tickets available for purchase, meaning the parks were not at capacity, according to the filing, but instead just blacked out.
The suit alleged that thousands of people may have been similarly impacted.
Now, in a proposal for the settlement's approval, Disney has agreed to pay out $9.5 million in the form of $67.41 to all of the class members. According to the settlement, the class includes over 100,000 people.
The individual settlement payment will not cover even one standard theme park ticket, which starts at just over $80 per day.
David Marcus, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told CNN that a judge will now have to give approval to the settlement preliminarily, and then assess its terms.
Those who were impacted will likely have to wait several months to receive a check, said Marcus, but can expect to get a notice of the settlement beforehand.
Lawyers for Disney and Nielsen did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, sent outside regular business hours.