Yesterday (July 20), an attorney for Janel Grant filed a joint status report with the U.S. District Court in Connecticut on behalf of her client and the defendants in her 2024 civil suit alleging sexual assault and trafficking, Vince McMahon and WWE.
As has been expected since another filing by lawyers representing all three parties last month, the latest confirms all parties have agreed to take their issues out of public court and into private arbitration.
Noteworthy in the new document is that Grant’s
team will follow it within five days with a request that the court dismiss her suit with prejudice, which means it will be permanently closed and can’t be revisted:
Pursuant to the Court’s July 13, 2026 order, ECF No. 151, Plaintiff Janel Grant, Defendant World Wrestling Entertainment, LLC, and Defendant Vincent K. McMahon (together, the “Parties”) jointly report that the Parties have executed an agreement to arbitrate their dispute. Pursuant to that agreement, within five business days, Plaintiff shall execute and cause to be filed a Stipulation of Voluntary Dismissal with Prejudice causing the action to be dismissed in its entirety, as to both remaining defendants, but without prejudice to the Parties’ rights to pursue their claims and defenses in arbitration.
McMahon and WWE had argued from start (Grant’s suit was initially filed in January 2024) that the non-disclosure agreement she signed mandated her claims be settled in arbitration. It’s still not clear why Grant and her attorneys gave up the fight to bring her case to public court.
Grant has continued to share her story as a victims’ right advocate in Connecticut, where she lived while in a relationship with McMahon and working for WWE, and where many of the alleged incidents take place. It seems unlikely that she’ll be able to continue that work during or after arbitration, but time will tell.
Barring some shocking development however, it still looks like any further implications from the suit for McMahon and WWE will be financial. It’s certainly had an impact on both, most notably McMahon losing his roles at WWE and parent company TKO. But hopes for lasting institutional changes at the largest professional wrestling company the world has ever know as a result of the shocking revelations in Grant’s suit would appear to be dashed.
