An intellectual property lawyer who worked for Disney for almost 30 years and was laid off in 2024 is suing the company for discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination.

Mary Fossier vs. The Walt Disney Company

The lawsuit was filed on October 8, 2026, in the Superior Court of California in the County of Los Angeles. Plaintiff Mary Fossier, an intellectual property (IP) lawyer who had worked for Disney since 1993, alleges that in October of 2023 she was targeted during a round of layoffs nicknamed “Project Coco.”

At the time of her termination, Fossier had climbed the ranks from a business litigator to Senior Vice President within the company’s legal team and “designed and built the most effective Intellectual Property (‘IP’) enforcement program in the world.”

According to the suit, the ageism started in October 2023, when Fossier’s new supervisor told the then-64-year-old during their first one-on-one meeting that she “[needed] to think about retiring.” Fossier said she had no plans to retire soon and wanted to work for at least another decade.

In the filing, Fossier insists that “on at least three occasions … [she] reported [her supervisor’s] ageist comments, treatment, and behavior to Disney’s Human Resources Department and sought their assistance,” but no action was taken concerning her complaints:

Disney’s acts and failures to act were done with oppression, fraud, malice, and willful disregard of Plaintiff’s right to be free from unlawful discrimination. Each individual who engaged in this discrimination was an officer, director, and/or managing agent of Defendant Disney who not only participated in the conduct and willful disregard constituting malice, oppression, and fraud, but also adopted and approved of the conduct after it occurred.

The suit claims that Fossier was then fired on October 18, 2024, to “make way for a younger and less qualified colleague,” and that her termination at age 67 means she “stands almost no chance … of finding new employment.”

Fossier is demanding a jury trial for the lawsuit. Disney has not made any public comment on the lawsuit yet.

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The post Former Senior VP Suing Disney Company for Wrongful Termination Due to Ageism appeared first on WDW News Today.