A district court judge has rejected Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s bid to force plaintiffs in a lawsuit over alleged sexual abuse to identify themselves publicly.
Judge James K. Bredar ruled earlier this month that the men can each continue to be known publicly as “John Doe” during the pretrial phase of their lawsuit against McMahon and her husband, Vince McMahon, Post Wrestling reported.
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In their lawsuit, the men claim they were sexually abused by former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) announcer Melvin Phillips as teenagers after being recruited by him to serve as ringside assistants, or “ring boys,” at WWE events in the 1980s and ’90s.
The McMahons – who co-founded the sports entertainment company that would become WWE in 1980 – are both named as defendants in the suit, which alleges they “knowingly allowed Phillips to exploit his position at the WWE to groom and abuse Ring Boys.”
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The lawsuit was initially filed in 2024 on behalf of five former ring boys and was later joined by three more alleged victims. But last June, the McMahons, who are reportedly separated, filed motions to dismiss the case. In December, Bredar granted both the McMahons’ motions in regard to one plaintiff and Linda McMahon’s in regard to five others. But of the remaining cases, he wrote in his ruling that “the Plaintiffs have plausibly pled that the adults around them including Vincent and Linda McMahon—had relevant knowledge at relevant times, and that they could and should have taken action to prevent the abuse and the harm that ensued.”
In January, the remaining plaintiffs filed a motion asking the court to allow them to continue using pseudonyms and to limit how their identities can be shared during discovery, according to Post Wrestling. The McMahons opposed the motion, arguing that the plaintiffs’ continued anonymity would harm their ability to defend themselves in the case.
In an opposition brief, Linda McMahon’s attorneys argued that plaintiffs “took steps to ensure that these allegations would be magnified and sensationalized throughout the media landscape, pushing Defendants’ names into the headlines and harming their reputations in the process. At the same time, Plaintiffs have preserved complete privacy for themselves, identifying themselves publicly only as ‘John Does,’ and revealing their true names to Defendants only after Defendants acquiesced to onerous—but temporary—confidentiality terms.”
Lawyers for the seven plaintiffs, meanwhile, argued that exposing their identities would result in their being subjected to psychological harm and unwanted attention.
In his decision earlier this month, Bredar ruled that any risk to the McMahons’ defense is outweighed by the risks to the plaintiffs of having their identities publicly disclosed, Post Wrestling reports.
As the outlet notes, the issue of the plaintiffs’ anonymity may again be relitigated if the case goes to trial.
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