Judge Rules Against McMahons In Ring Boy Lawsuit, ‘John Doe’ Anonymity Allowed To Continue

TRIGGER WARNING – SEXUAL ABUSE

Judge James K. Bredar rejected defendants Vince McMahon and Linda McMahon’s efforts to require ring boy plaintiffs to put their real names into the public record in the ongoing lawsuit. The ruling was handed down on Thursday.

The plaintiffs allege abuse by the ring announcer Mel Phillips, who died in 2012, during their work as minors for the World Wrestling Federation in the 1970s through the early 1990s. The defendants are being accused of negligence.

According to Brandon Thurston of POST Wrestling, “The ruling means the ring boys’ names will remain known to the defendants — to whom those identities have been disclosed since early on in the case — but unknown to the public through the pretrial phase.”

The judge found that the two factors, of the five-factor test for anonymity, that weighed most heavily were in favor of the plaintiffs. The subject matter of this case — allegations of childhood sexual abuse — “are particularly sensitive and personal even beyond other allegations of sexual abuse.” Secondly, the judge agreed that the plaintiffs would be at risk of significant harm if their names were known to the public. Bredar was persuaded by the ring boys’ attorneys’ assertion that “there is a significant risk of subjecting Plaintiffs to re-traumatization if they are forced to publicly reveal their identities, making them permanently available on the Internet.

“Defendants complain that Plaintiffs themselves have generated some of [the widespread] media attention [this case has received], but the Court finds that this is not the sole explanation [for that attention. Defendants are public figures, whose counsel, like Plaintiffs’ counsel, have made statements about the case to press, and the case relates to [quoting from the plaintiffs’ earlier filing] an ‘ongoing national conversation about sexual misconduct against minors and involving people with fame.’”

The lawsuit was originally filed in October 2024. You can read the full lawsuit here.