The Baldwin family was feeling the Christmas spirit at the Epcot’s Candlelight Processional as the choir sang and celebrity guest soap star Susan Lucci read the nativity story.
“I turned to my husband [Claude] and I said, ‘Aren’t you glad you came? And he said, ‘I just had a really great time,'” said Emma Jean Baldwin, according to court transcripts. “And that is when … all hell just broke loose.”
Claude Baldwin, then 74, said he was attacked by a teenage boy and injured at the end of the show on Dec. 22, 2011. However, the boy’s family argued it was Claude Baldwin and his adult son who were the instigators.
The Baldwins, who come from a family with deep ties to Disney World, in 2015 sued the boy, his parents and Disney for more than $15,000 in Orange Circuit Court. The civil lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed in late October, although court filings did not say if a settlement had been reached. Each side was responsible for their own court costs.
Lawyers for both families and Disney declined to comment on the outcome of the case.
Included in the court case are hundreds of pages of transcripts from the family members that detail the fight that night during the holiday show that’s been a tradition at Disney World since 1971.
It doesn’t appear criminal charges were filed after Orange County Sheriff’s Office investigated and filed a report in 2011.
The boy, whom the Orlando Sentinel is not naming because he was 15 at the time, had been diagnosed with Asperger’s, a mild form of autism. His family said he didn’t have a history of violence, according to court documents.
Uninterested in the holiday music and not a fan of loud noises, the boy blocked out the show with his iPod and earbuds. On one side sat his father, and on the other was Claude Baldwin, a stranger.
What happened next depends on who’s telling the story.
According to the Baldwins, the fracas began when the boy told Claude, “‘Get the hell out of the way, old man!” as the boy tried to leave.
Claude Baldwin said he told the boy to be patient and go back to his iPod.
“Then the next thing I knew, he ran through me,” said Claude Baldwin, who lives in Orlando, according to court transcripts. “I was in such agony and such pain.”
His daughter, Judy Durham, gave a similar account and said the boy “all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he takes his fist and does a diagonal punch into the chest of my father. And my dad fell over the back of the bleachers and said, ‘I think I broke my back,'” the transcripts read.
Jody Durham, whose career had lasted 30 years at Disney, was working as a recruitment manager in the human resources department, she said in her 2017 deposition, according to the court files. Disney wouldn’t say if she was still employed with the company.
She was also the widow of Dave Durham, a country singer and performer who was hired at Disney personally by the company’s former CEO Michael Eisner, Claude Baldwin said in his transcripts. Dave Durham’s website biography listed him as doing voice-over work for the Country Bear Jamboree, a beloved longtime attraction at the Magic Kingdom.
The boy told a different story about what happened.
Claude Baldwin asked him what he was doing with his iPod, and the boy told him it was none of his business, the boy testified.
Claude Baldwin pulled out his earbuds and then chest-bumped him, so the teenager pushed him back, the boy testified.
The boy’s father, Peter Ruggiero Jr., also said it was Claude Baldwin who instigated the fight.
“He launched himself up out of the chair and reached up and grabbed my son,” said Ruggiero, a doctor from Longwood, in court transcripts. “And the next thing I saw was that [my son] pushed back and Mr. Baldwin fell.”
He described it as a “hot-blooded, high-adrenaline, threatening situation” as the rest of the Baldwins got involved.
Jody Durham yelled at her brother, Chad, to help their father, and he vaulted over the seats.
“[The boy] was on top of my father,” Chad Baldwin said in court records. “I grabbed him by the chest and the neck. And I threw him back, and I broke his necklace.”
The silver cross, a gift from the boy’s grandma, was not found.
Chad Baldwin’s response enraged the boy’s parents.
“I remember pushing off Mr. Baldwin, saying, ‘Back off. Leave him alone. He’s a kid,'” Ruggiero said.
In the scuttle, the boy became upset, screaming he was going to kill everyone, the Baldwins testified.
Deputies arrived later and helped calm down the boy.
The boy’s father just wanted to take his family home and move on, the sheriff’s report said.
The Baldwins declined to prosecute.
“I don’t want to get the kid in trouble,” Claude Baldwin told the sheriff’s office.
But four years later, the Baldwins sued, saying in the lawsuit that Claude Baldwin had been seriously injured, was now disabled and had aggravated a pre-existing condition.
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