{"id":25124,"date":"2023-04-18T20:24:42","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T00:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=25124"},"modified":"2023-04-18T20:24:42","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T00:24:42","slug":"fox-news-settles-dominion-defamation-case-for-787-5m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2023\/04\/18\/fox-news-settles-dominion-defamation-case-for-787-5m\/","title":{"rendered":"Fox News settles Dominion defamation case for $787.5m"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fox News has settled a defamation lawsuit from the voting machine company, Dominion, over its reporting of the 2020 presidential election.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In a last-minute settlement before trial, the network agreed to pay $787.5m (\u00a3644m) – about half the $1.6bn initially sought by Dominion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dominion argued its business was harmed by Fox spreading false claims the vote had been rigged against Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The deal spares Fox executives such as Rupert Murdoch from having to testify.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The judge in the case is not required to give his approval for the settlement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In a statement, Fox said Tuesday’s settlement in one of the most anticipated defamation trials in recent US history reflected its “commitment to the highest journalistic standards”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Fox statement added that the network “acknowledges the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dominion chief executive John Poulos told a press conference the deal included Fox “admitting to telling lies, causing enormous damage to my company”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Justin Nelson, a Dominion attorney, told reporters that “the truth matters”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Lies have consequences,” he added. “Over two years ago a torrent of lies swept Dominion and election officials across America into an alternative universe of conspiracy theories, causing grievous harm to Dominion and the country.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Nelson added that for “democracy to endure”, Americans must “share a commitment to facts”.<\/p>\n

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Opening arguments in the case had been due to start on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The announcement of a settlement came after an unexplained delay of several hours once jury selection had finished, prompting speculation that talks were underway behind the scenes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On Monday, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis announced that the start of the trial would be delayed by 24 hours.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Although he gave no reason, US media reported that it was to give both sides an opportunity to reach a settlement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On Tuesday morning, however, both sides appeared to be digging in for a lengthy trial.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Attorneys for Fox had repeatedly objected to the $1.6bn in damages sought by Colorado-based Dominion, characterising the figure as massively inflated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The “real cost” of the case, Fox said, would be the “cherished” rights to freedom of speech and of the press enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dominion’s lawsuit argued that the conservative network had sullied the electronic voting company’s reputation by airing falsehoods about the 2020 vote being stolen from former President Trump.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The lawsuit claimed that the false claims were partly an effort to win over viewers angry by Fox’s decision to – correctly – call the crucial electoral state of Arizona in favour of Mr Trump’s then-challenger, Joe Biden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Two of the Fox executives responsible for the Arizona decision lost their jobs two months later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Legal findings released ahead of the trial suggested that a number of Fox executives and journalists privately questioned and dismissed conspiracy claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, but still put them on air.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Court documents show that Mr Murdoch referred to the claims about Dominion as “really crazy”, but failed to take any action.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In one series of text messages, top-rated host Tucker Carlson said some of the claims were “insane”. Another host, Sean Hannity, said privately he did not believe them “for one second”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Fox has said the words were taken out of context.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ahead of the trial, Judge Davis ruled that the claims against Dominion had already been proven false, emphasising that the falsehoods were “crystal clear”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Had the trial gone on, jurors would have been tasked only with determining whether Fox News acted with “actual malice” by broadcasting claims it knew to be false.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite the mammoth pay-out, some legal experts believe the settlement was overall a positive outcome for the network.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Syracuse University professor and First Amendment expert Roy Gutterman said: “Looking down the line at a six-week trial, this was going to be gruelling for everyone involved and likely embarrassing for Fox.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“But a verdict against Fox could have been even costlier, and had serious implications on subsequent rulings on the actual malice standard and the First Amendment itself.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Civil litigation attorney Michelle Simpson Tuegel told the BBC that the settlement “speaks to the massive threat Fox saw from this litigation”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“The reputational harm of having executives, including chairman Rupert Murdoch, and hosts take the stand seems to have moved the parties towards a resolution,” Ms Tuegel added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Fox still faces a second, similar defamation lawsuit from another election technology firm, Smartmatic, which is seeking $2.7bn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dominion still has legislation pending against two conservative news networks, OAN and Newsmax.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The company has also sued Trump allies such as Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fox News has settled a defamation lawsuit from the voting machine company, Dominion, over its reporting of the 2020 presidential election. In a last-minute settlement before trial, the network agreed to pay $787.5m (\u00a3644m) – […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,3],"tags":[1023,9361,7661,285,9355,7662,9356,8164],"class_list":{"0":"post-25124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-defamation","11":"tag-delaware-superior-court","12":"tag-dominion-voting-systems","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-fox-corp","15":"tag-fox-news","16":"tag-fox-news-media","17":"tag-us-election-2020","18":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25124"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25126,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25124\/revisions\/25126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}