-
A judge said Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News’ parent company can continue.
-
Dominion argued that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch believed that Fox News would benefit from promoting election lies.
-
Delaware Judge Eric M. Davis said he argued his case enough to move on to fact finding.
A Delaware judge said Tuesday that the parent company of Fox News must face a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, ruling that the election company’s accusations that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch intentionally fueled election lies had sufficient merit to advance the case. case.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis ruled in December that Dominion’s $1.6 Billion Lawsuit Could Proceed Against Fox News. The new decision denied a separate motion to dismiss the lawsuit by Fox Corporation, led by its chairman, Rupert Murdoch, and his son, CEO Lachlan Murdoch.
According to Davis, Dominion has argued enough that the parent company may also be responsible for promoting falsehoods alleging that Dominion rigged the 2020 presidential election against then-President Donald Trump and for now-President Joe Biden.
“Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch allegedly made a ‘business calculation’ to spread former President Trump’s narrative through Fox News even though they personally did not believe it,” Davis wrote, citing the Dominion documents. “Thus, Fox Corporation employees and officers allegedly bore ‘direct responsibility’ for disseminating the Dominion statements.”
At the same time, Davis eliminated Fox Broadcasting, the entity that runs fox.com, as a defendant in the case, saying Dominion’s lawsuit was too speculative about its role in perpetuating lies about its role in the election.
In legal documents, Dominion cited media reports saying Fox News “sought and obtained direct approval from Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch before asking Biden in Arizona,” an election night victory that sharply reduced the chances of victory. of Trump. In the days that followed, Fox News’s viewership plummeted, while the more fringe right-wing media organizations, Newsmax and One America News, gained popularity by denying the reality of Biden’s victory.
“Dominion alleged that Fox Corporation executives believed that Fox News would benefit from endorsing former President Trump’s voter fraud narrative and suffer if it did not; therefore, Fox Corporations’ executives ‘pressed[ed]Fox News to “lure the Fox audience back home” and “encourage” on-air personalities to perpetuate false claims about Dominion; and Fox Corporation ‘rewarded’ those at Fox News who complied with alleged instructions and ‘punished’ those who did not,” Davis wrote, summarizing Dominion’s arguments.
Davis also noted that The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, two other media organizations controlled by the Murdoch family, “condemned President Trump’s claims and urged him to concede defeat,” supporting “a reasonable inference.” that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch knew Dominion had not rigged the election or at least recklessly ignored the truth.” Dominion, Davis wrote, had sufficiently argued that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch acted with “actual malice” and should be subject to fact-finding in the Dominion libel case.
The decision comes as the House of Representatives continues to hold hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection, where a mob of pro-Trump protesters tried to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election.
On TuesdayElection workers in Georgia testified about being terrorized by Trump supporters who they believed played a role in falsifying results, and the Republican speaker of the Arizona state House of Representatives said Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, knew that there was no evidence of electoral manipulation.
Tuesday’s court decision raises the stakes for Fox News’ legal battles over 2020 election falsehoods. Dominion’s lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in April 2023. The company separately faces a $2.7 billion lawsuit from Smartmatic, a rival election technology company that is also caught up in election conspiracy theories. progressing in new york.
Fox News has argued that the lawsuits against him amount to an “attack on the First Amendment.” A Fox Corporation representative did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
Dominion and Smartmatic have also filed lawsuits against other organizations and media entities on election conspiracy theories, including Newsmax, One America News, Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
Read the original article at Business Insider
Reference-news.yahoo.com