Brandon Thurston of POST Wrestling has reported that a motion for early discovery has been denied in the lawsuit against Vince McMahon and WWE by former employee Janel Grant.
In her ruling, Judge Sarah F. Russell found that Grant’s counsel had not established “good cause” for obtaining records and depositions before the defendants file their anticipated motions to compel arbitration, though the possibilyt of reconsidering the issue has been left open once those motions are submitted.
The decision comes after seven months of inactivity while awaiting the ruling, which falls within federal judges’ broad discretion over the time they may take to make such decisions.
The lawsuit, initially filed in January 2024, includes allegations of sexual assault and trafficking on the part of the former executive chair of WWE, who resigned from all roles within the company and the recently-formed TKO Group.
A nondisclosure agreement is key to the dispute in part because of a clause directing disputes to be settled in private, binding arbitration as opposed to public court.
Former WWE executive John Laurinaitis was formerly a defendant in the case, but a confidential settlement with Grant led to his name being dropped in May 2025.