Dominion Voting Systems – Deep Left Field

Now that a judge has decided a jury will be empaneled to hear the case of Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News, the conservative network is about to face a monumental task of defending itself from a $1.6 billion lawsuit without several crucial defense arguments.

That was the topic of discussion Sunday on MSNBC when host Katie Phang spoke with Jeremy Peters of The New York Times.

“Judge Eric Davis on Friday decimated much of Fox’s potential trial defenses, ruling that Fox cannot invoke the neutral report privilege because the evidence does not support that Fox conducted good faith reporting, Phang noted. “The judge is also blocking Fox from using the fair reporting privilege because the statements made by Fox and its guests were not related to official proceedings.”

Peters concurred with Phang, adding, “When the jury gets the case several of Fox’s key arguments will not be available for its lawyers to make.”

The Times reporter then elaborated:

“Several of these will have already been decided in Dominion’s favor because of the judge’s decision on Friday. So what this does is it significantly limits Fox’s ability to mount a defense and leaves for the jury the key question of whether or not there is enough evidence to show that Fox hosts, producers and executives knew what they were putting on the air was false or at least recklessly disregarded information showing that it was false.”

“That is how you get to potentially significant and sizeable judgment against Fox News,” Peters added. “Dominion is asking for $1.6 billion and appears that, unless this settles, which I think it’s highly unlikely at this point, and has already been highly unlikely because Fox appears to be preserving its options for appeal here, this is going to head to the jury and it will be one of the most significant and far-reaching defamation suits against a major media company that we have seen in decades.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWTdkuxP2d4

Fox is also facing a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Smartmatic, an election and software technology company.

The first line of that lawsuit lays out exactly how both Smartmatic and Dominion plan to win their cases against Fox:

“The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for President and Vice President of the United States. The election was not stolen, rigged, or fixed. These are facts. They are demonstrable and irrefutable.”

None of those facts are up for debate. And they could wind up bankrupting Fox.

A Delaware judge has ruled that Fox News “intended to avoid the truth” when broadcasting misinformation about the 2020 election and Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing the right-wing network for defamation and seeking $1.6 billion in damages.

CNN reports that Superior Court Judge Eric Davis’ ruling was a major blow to Fox, which was asking the court to dismiss the Dominion suit:

The ruling will now allow Dominion to attempt to unearth extensive communications within Fox News as they gather evidence for the case, and the company may be able to interview the network’s top names under oath.
At this stage, the court must assume Dominion’s claims about Fox News are true.

Judge Davis noted in his ruling that Dominion had notified Fox of inaccuracies they had broadcast and supplied them with information that clearly refuted accusations of vote-switching in the 2020 presidential race:

“Nevertheless, Fox and its news personnel continued to report Dominion purported connection to the election fraud claims without also reporting on Dominion’s emails … Given that Fox apparently refused to report contrary evidence, including evidence from the Department of Justice, the Complaint’s allegations support the reasonable inference that Fox intended to keep Dominion’s side of the story out of the narrative.”

According to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, the ruling is very bad news for Fox:

“By putting Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, making these outrageous false allegations on the air without allowing Dominion to refute them, that’s libel. And that’s what Fox is going to have to defend. And I don’t know how they’re going to defend it it. I think it’s a very good case for the plaintiffs.”

Former White House counsel John Dean concurred with Toobin, noting:

“This case has not been decided on any substance yet. Just on the pleadings. And it made the basic bar and got over that, which is going to be a nightmare for Fox, as Jeffrey says. They’re going to now dig in deep and it’s not going to be easy.”

If Fox is found liable and forced to pay $1.6 billion in damages, that could lead to other enormous lawsuits. Enough large lawsuits could leave the network financially vulnerable and lead to its collapse. Imagine how much better a world without Fox News would be.