Warning. This post may contain speculation, conjecture or opinions.
When a passholder is looking for park reservations for an unblocked date and is told there is nothing available, but for that same date Disney is still selling tickets that is a major malfunction under any "verbiage." I love it when lay people call legal documents, "verbiage." They seldom have a clue how much power and what rights are defined by that "verbiage." That verbiage has a monetary value called damages, punitives and attorney fees and costs.
Bottom line: I don't care what label is put on it -- unavailable, fake blockout, verbiage or anything else, an unblocked date for a passholder must legally be available as long as there is any availability for anyone.
Now, in my humble opinion, the pleadings of the California lawsuit are woeful. So, Disney might win this round. Nielson might win. It really doesn't matter.
Interesting that the "Dream Key disappeared. But, it appears from the pleadings I read that the lawsuit speaks only of
Disneyland Resort and only addressed "Dream Keys." Perhaps they could not find additional named plaintiffs to press the other causes of action for all tiers of passholders on both coasts. The current lawsuit parties have been through a second amended complaint and I didn't read that complaint's revisions, but if it is the same thing, there may be a "round 2." Even if it is certified as a class action, the class might be Dream Key holders at DLR. So what!
Here's the impact, both now and after the lawsuit. I am thinking that west coast lawsuit may not prevent someone else from bringing a lawsuit, like a Sorcerer pass holder at WDW who is prevented from getting a reservation on an unblocked date while tickets are still being sold for the same date. Now, Disney's in-house lawyers are smart enough to figure this out all on their own without the benefits of the result of a lawsuit. (So many lawsuits are won not on the merits of the case, but because opposing counsel was simply not skilled enough.)
So, I presume Disney's in-house counsel would advise Chapek he might get by on the cheap as far as exposure to damages in this filed lawsuit as long as only Nielson alone or the certified class that oncluded only he Dream Key holders at Disney World were involved. But, going forward, they would advise Chapek to keep his hands off the levers to throttle passholders at both parks and all tiers as far as adding unavailability while selling tickets for the same dates. His real lever is always going to be capping the numbers -- from here forward. At least that is what his lawyers should be telling him.
Now, that brings up an interesting point. IF he is being told that by his in-house counsel, then it is entirely possible that if the reservations actually do little or nothing to smooth out the crowd among the parks, then perhaps we will see reservations disappear. Availability is only one issue with reservations though. There are bonus days, adding to the number of park holds, afternoon passes and several other tools inherent in keeping reservations. So, we shall see.