Ex-Disneyland Guard Loses Suit Challenging Firing

A former security guard who was charged with and acquitted of faking a shooting in the parking lot of Disneyland lost a legal bid Monday to claim damages from the amusement park for firing him.

The lawsuit filed by Joseph D’Allura, alleging that the park fired him without cause after the shooting incident, was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Pamela Ann Rhymer.

“This will end the litigation unless there’s some motion to set aside the judgment,” said Daniel F. Fears, lawyer for the Walt Disney Co.

The bizarre case began with D’Allura reporting he had been shot in the chest by someone who was breaking into a car Aug. 14, 1983. D’Allura, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, was unarmed.

Authorities found a spent .22-caliber slug lodged in the first layers of the vest.

Anaheim police investigating the incident became suspicious when they could find no one who had heard a shot fired in the vicinity that evening. Although D’Allura was hospitalized for four days complaining of chest pains, no marks were found on his chest.

D’Allura was arrested and charged with filing a false police report. Jurors acquitted him in 1985, saying prosecutors failed to prove their case.

In the trial, an expert testified that a shell casing found near where D’Allura said the shooting took place was from a gun found at the home of a relative of D’Allura. Prosecutors suggested that D’Allura, now 29, may have been emotionally distraught after breaking up with a girlfriend.

But D’Allura never wavered in his account. After he was fired by Disneyland, he filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that the park lacked cause to terminate him, subjected him to emotional distress and arranged for Anaheim police to seek charges against him.

He sought at least $5 million in damages.

Judge Rhymer on Monday found that D’Allura’s lawyers failed to file papers opposing Disneyland’s motion contending that the ex-guard lacked a legal basis for his lawsuit.

D’Allura’s lawyer, Ronald Kanner, said a motion will be filed to set aside the judgment.

Kanner said the press of trial business confronting him and an associate made it impossible to answer Disneyland’s motion on time.

D’Allura had talked to newspaper reporters after the incident. In the lawsuit he claimed in part that he had been terminated because park policy limits an employee’s freedom to speak out on topics management considers “detrimental to its public image.” Disneyland attorneys denied the allegation.

D’Allura also accused Disneyland of false arrest. He claimed park officials pressured Anaheim police into seeking the criminal charges--a claim flatly denied by both the park and the police.