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    Analysis: Fox News’s $787.5 Million Settlement Is the Cost of Airing a Lie

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    Fox News’s late-stage agreement with Dominion Voting Systems came with a rare acknowledgment of broadcasting false claims by the conservative media powerhouse.In settling with Dominion Voting Systems, Fox News has avoided an excruciating, drawn-out trial in which its founding chief, Rupert Murdoch, its top managers and its biggest stars would have had to face hostile grilling on an embarrassing question: Why did they allow a virulent and defamatory conspiracy theory about the 2020 election to spread across the network when so many of them knew it to be false?But the $787.5 million settlement agreement — among the largest defamation settlements in history — and Fox’s courthouse statement recognizing that the court had found “certain claims about Dominion” aired on its programming “to be false” — at the very least amount to a rare, high-profile acknowledgment of informational wrongdoing by a powerhouse in conservative media and America’s most popular cable network.“Money is accountability,” Stephen Shackelford, a Dominion lawyer, said outside the courthouse, “and we got that today from Fox.”During a news conference, a lawyer for Dominion Voting Systems said, “lies have consequences.”Pete Marovich for The New York TimesThe terms of the agreement, which was abruptly announced just before lawyers were expected to make opening statements, did not require Fox to apologize for any wrongdoing in its own programming — a point that Dominion was said to have been pressing for.Shortly after the agreement was reached, Fox said it was “hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”The settlement carries an implicit plea of “no contest” to several pretrial findings from the presiding judge in the case, Eric M. Davis, that cast Fox’s programming in exceptionally harsh light. In one of those findings, the judge sided with Dominion in its assertion that Fox could not claim that its airing of the conspiracy theory — generally relating to the false claim that its machines “switched” Trump votes into Biden votes — fell under a legally protected status of “news gathering” that can shield news organizations when facts are disputed. The judge wrote, “the evidence does not support that FNN conducted good-faith, disinterested reporting.”In another finding, the judge wrote that the “evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”Through those findings, the judge seriously limited Fox’s ability to argue that it was acting as a news network pursuing the claims of a newsmaker, in this case, the president of the United States, who was the lead clarion for the false Dominion narrative.In those heady days before the first day of trial, Fox had been indicating that if it were to lose at trial, it would work up an appeal that would, at least partly, argue with those judicial rulings. Now they stand undisputed. By the end of the day on Tuesday, it was clear that Fox’s lawyers were engaged in an urgent calculus to take the financial hit rather than risk losing at trial. As so many legal experts before the trial had argued, Dominion had managed to collect an unusual amount of internal documentation from Fox showing that many inside the company knew the Dominion election conspiracy theory was pure fantasy. That extended to the network’s highest ranks — right up to Mr. Murdoch himself.Rupert Murdoch and his lieutenants could have faced a drawn-out trial that would have forced them to acknowledge why they broadcast conspiratorial claims that knew to be false.Mary Altaffer/Associated PressThat evidence appeared to bring Dominion close to the legal threshold in defamation cases known as “actual malice” — established when defamatory statements are “made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or not.” (That bar, however, is not always easy to meet, and there are no guarantees in front of a jury.)“Dominion Voting had elicited much critical evidence that Fox had acted with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth, which it could have proved to a jury, so the only question remaining would have been damages,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. “Trial of the case also might have undermined the reputation of Fox when the evidence was presented in open court.”It was less surprising that Fox settled than that it did so at such a late stage on Tuesday. A trial would have seen Fox News personnel and Mr. Murdoch parrying with lawyers over the knowledge of falsity they held and why they did not take any action to stop it. The answers would have further unmasked the internal modus operandi of an organization that has long guarded its internal operations.The one question that only time will answer is whether the settlement was enough to cause Fox News to change the way it handles such incendiary and defamatory conspiracy content. The amount is huge — $787.5 million. Fox News certainly doesn’t want to see a similar settlement anytime soon as other legal cases loom, notably a $2.7 billion suit from another election technology company, Smartmatic.But Fox did manage to escape Dominion’s goal of an on-air admission or apology, meaning it did not have to force either on its audience, which did not hear much about the case on Fox’s shows to begin with.“It’s hard to say how damaging a decision against Fox would have been for the company beyond the financial cost of the verdict because their audience is very loyal and bought into the polarized perspective their opinion hosts present,” Michelle Simpson Tuegel, a trial lawyer, said in a statement. “But the reputational harm of having executives, including Chairman Rupert Murdoch, and hosts take the stand seems to have moved the parties towards a resolution.” More

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      Fox Will Pay $787.5 Million to Settle Dominion Defamation Suit

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      The settlement with Dominion Voting Systems was the latest extraordinary twist in a case that exposed the inner workings of the most powerful voice in conservative news.Fox News abruptly agreed on Tuesday to pay $787.5 million to resolve a defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s promotion of misinformation about the 2020 election, averting a lengthy and embarrassing trial just as a packed courtroom was seated in anticipation of hearing opening statements.The settlement, one of the largest ever in a defamation case, was the latest extraordinary twist in a case that has been full of remarkable disclosures that exposed the inner workings of the most powerful voice in conservative news.In addition to the huge financial price, Dominion exacted a difficult admission from Fox News, which acknowledged in a statement that “certain claims” it made about Dominion were false.“The truth matters. Lies have consequences,” Justin Nelson, a lawyer for Dominion, said outside Delaware Superior Court on Tuesday.“Lies have consequences,” a lawyer for Dominion Voting Systems said during a news conference.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesNews of the 11th-hour agreement stunned the full courtroom in Wilmington, where the case was being heard. Gasps filled the air when Judge Eric M. Davis told the jury shortly before 4 p.m. that the two parties had resolved the matter. Lawyers for both sides had been preparing to speak to the jury for the first time, microphones clipped to their jacket lapels.The settlement spares Fox a trial that would have gone on for weeks and put many of the company’s most prominent figures — from the media mogul Rupert Murdoch to hosts like Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo — on the stand.The case held the potential to make public a stream of damaging information about how the network told its audience a story of fraud and interference in the 2020 presidential election that many of its own executives and on-screen personalities did not believe. And the network was not forced to apologize — a concession that Dominion lawyers had sought, lawyers involved in the case said.Dominion sued two years ago, after Fox aired false stories claiming that Dominion’s voting machines were susceptible to hacking and had flipped votes from President Donald J. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr. On Tuesday, the company expressed a sense of exoneration about the large financial cost that Fox will have to pay. While Dominion’s suit asked for damages of $1.6 billion, almost double the settlement figure, the company will avoid many years of appeals that could have trimmed or eliminated any payout from a trial.“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,” Mr. Nelson said. “Today’s settlement of $787.5 million represents vindication and accountability.”The case and the expected trial were significant because they raised the prospect for an elusive judgment in the post-Trump era: Very few allies of the former president’s have been held legally accountable for their roles in spreading the falsehoods that undermined confidence in the country’s democratic process and cast Mr. Biden’s victory as illegitimate. Polls show that large numbers of Republicans still believe the 2020 election was tainted.The size of the settlement, experts said, seems to have little precedent. RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah, said she believed it was one of the largest settlements in a defamation case ever.“This was unquestionably the strongest defamation case we’ve ever seen against a major media company,” Ms. Andersen Jones said. The case was even more unusual, she added, because media companies typically seek to settle well before so much damaging information about their internal workings is released.A deal came together at the last possible minute, after months of almost no serious discussion between the two sides. As the case proceeded, Dominion divulged extraordinary details about the doubts that Fox employees expressed privately about voter fraud claims, even as they struck a different tone on the air.“Settlement before this trove of evidence became public would of course have been in Fox’s best interest,” Ms. Andersen Jones said. “Waiting until the eve of trial, when the whole nation had a chance to focus on what Fox said internally about Trump, its sources and its own viewers, gave Dominion the extra layer of accountability it was seeking.”It is uncommon for defamation suits to get to trial, in part because the bar for proving “actual malice” — the legal standard that requires plaintiffs to show that defendants knew what they were saying was a lie, or had a reckless disregard for the truth — is so high. It is rarer yet for one to feature the volume of evidence that Dominion had amassed against Fox.In the run-up to trial, Dominion publicly released reams of internal communications among Fox executives, hosts and producers that revealed how the country’s most-watched cable news network set in motion a strategy to win back viewers who had tuned out after Mr. Trump’s loss. The messages tell the story of a frantic scramble inside Fox as it started losing audience share to competitors, like Newsmax, that were more willing to report on and endorse false claims about a plot involving Dominion machines to steal the election from Mr. Trump.Producers referred to pro-Trump guests like Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani as “gold” for ratings and acknowledged that the audience didn’t want to hear about subjects like the possibility of a peaceful transition from a Trump administration to a Biden administration.Those communications have shown how employees at Fox expressed serious doubts about and, at times, were scornful of Mr. Trump and his allies as they spread lies about voter fraud, questioning the legitimacy of Mr. Biden’s election. Some at Fox mocked Mr. Trump and his lawyers as “crazy” and under the influence of drugs like L.S.D. and magic mushrooms.Some Fox hosts privately described their colleagues as “reckless” for endorsing Mr. Trump’s false claims, acknowledging that there was “no evidence” to back them up. Yet for weeks, Fox continued to give a platform to election deniers, despite doubts about their credibility. Dominion challenged statements made on multiple programs on multiple nights. Typically, defamation cases involve only a single disputed statement.The trial would have been a spectacle. Mr. Murdoch, whose family controls the Fox media empire, was slated to be one of Dominion’s first witnesses this week. Star anchors including Sean Hannity, Mr. Carlson and Ms. Bartiromo were likely to be called at other points.Even the most blockbuster media trials of the last generation — Ariel Sharon’s suit against Time and Gen. William C. Westmoreland’s against CBS, both in the 1980s — lacked the most explosive elements of this case, which raised weighty questions about the protections the First Amendment affords the media and whether one of the most influential forces in conservative politics would have to pay a price for amplifying misinformation.Both of those cases were settled out of court, too.In recent days, Fox raised questions about Dominion’s claims of damages. On Monday, it disputed Dominion’s worth, pointing to a recent legal filing in which the company lowered part of its request for compensation. Fox lawyers also raised doubts about the harm that Dominion had suffered, saying the company acknowledged that it had turned a profit in recent years.But the potential pitfalls for proceeding with a trial were real for Fox. Some of the revelations from the depositions that Dominion had conducted offered a preview of how damaging a trial could be. Mr. Murdoch acknowledged during his deposition that some Fox hosts had “endorsed” Mr. Trump’s lies, an admission that undercut Fox’s defense that it was merely reporting on — not amplifying — the former president’s claims.After the deposition concluded, the general counsel of Fox Corporation, Viet Dinh, tried to reassure Mr. Murdoch that he had done well.“I’m just going to say it. They didn’t lay a finger on you,” Mr. Dinh said.Mr. Murdoch disagreed, according to a person who witnessed the exchange. He pointed a finger at the lawyer who had questioned him for Dominion, Mr. Nelson, and said, “I think he would strongly disagree with that.”To which Mr. Nelson replied, “Indeed, I do.” More

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      Judge Delays Fox and Dominion Trial by a Day

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      Opening statements in the $1.6 billion defamation case against Fox News were set to begin on Monday.A Delaware judge on Monday said that he had delayed by a day the start of a highly anticipated defamation trial over the spread of misinformation in the 2020 presidential election.The postponement of the trial was the latest twist in the case. Late Sunday, Judge Eric M. Davis said the proceedings would continue on Tuesday. He did not give a reason then or in his brief remarks from the bench just after 9 a.m. on Monday.“This does not seem unusual to me,” Judge Davis said, explaining that he had rarely been part of a trial that did not have some kind of delay. “I am continuing the matter until tomorrow.”The case has opened an unprecedented window into the inner workings of the country’s leading conservative news network. In the run-up to trial, Fox has handed over tens of thousands of emails and text messages exchanged among its hosts, producers and executives. Many of them revealed that there was widespread doubt inside the network over former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that he had been cheated of victory.The case is considered a landmark test of First Amendment protections for the press and has been closely watched by legal and media analysts. Dominion’s voting machines became the focus of pro-Trump conspiracy theories that wrongly implicated the company’s technology in a plot to flip votes from Mr. Trump to President Biden.On Monday, the courtroom was filled with reporters from around the world awaiting word on when they could expect to hear opening statements from both parties and exactly what the delay was about.Boldface names from Fox News — hosts including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo, along with Rupert Murdoch, whose family controls the sprawling Fox media empire — are expected to testify if the case goes to trial.Dominion Voting Systems, an elections technology company, filed the libel lawsuit against Fox in early 2021, claiming that Fox hosts and guests repeatedly uttered lies about its role in a fictitious plot to steal the election despite knowing the claims, which had been pushed by Mr. Trump and his supporters, were not true.Fox has said that it was reporting on newsworthy allegations involving a presidential election and insisted that its broadcasts were protected under the First Amendment as commentary and news. It has also challenged Dominion’s damages claim, arguing that the company vastly overvalued itself and has not suffered the blows to its business that it says.This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates. More

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      Fox News Sanctioned by Judge for Withholding Evidence in Dominion Case

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      Judge Eric Davis also said an investigation was likely into Fox’s handling of documents and whether it had withheld details about Rupert Murdoch’s corporate role.WILMINGTON, Del. — The judge overseeing Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News said on Wednesday that he was imposing a sanction on the network and would very likely start an investigation into whether Fox’s legal team had deliberately withheld evidence, scolding the lawyers for not being “straightforward” with him.The rebuke came after lawyers for Dominion, which is suing for defamation, revealed a number of instances in which Fox’s lawyers had not turned over evidence in a timely manner. That evidence included recordings of the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo talking with former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, which Dominion said had been turned over only a week ago.In imposing the sanction on Fox, Judge Eric M. Davis of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that if Dominion had to do additional depositions, or redo any, then Fox would have to “do everything they can to make the person available, and it will be at a cost to Fox.”He also said he would very likely appoint a special master — an outside lawyer — to investigate Fox’s handling of discovery of documents and the question of whether Fox had inappropriately withheld details about the scope of Rupert Murdoch’s role. Since Dominion filed its suit in early 2021, Fox had argued that Mr. Murdoch and Fox Corporation, the parent company, should not be part of the case because Mr. Murdoch, the chair, and other senior executives had nothing to do with running Fox News. But in the past few days, Fox disclosed to Dominion that Mr. Murdoch was a corporate officer at Fox News.Dominion, a voting technology company, accused Fox and some of the network’s executives and hosts of smearing its reputation by linking it to a nonexistent conspiracy to rig voting machines in the 2020 presidential election. Fox had said that it was just reporting on newsworthy allegations from Mr. Trump, who was then the president, as well as his lawyers and supporters, who told Fox’s hosts and producers that they would prove their allegations in court.Fox’s lawyers had only recently disclosed that Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of Fox Corp., was also the executive chair of Fox News, a role that pointed to more responsibility for its broadcasts.Mike Segar/ReutersJury selection starts on Thursday, and the trial is scheduled to begin on Monday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Dominion would avail itself of the judge’s ruling allowing its lawyers to conduct additional depositions. But it was clear from Judge Davis’s stern reprimand of Fox’s lawyers on Wednesday — and similarly piqued remarks from him during another hearing on Tuesday — that he was losing patience. The judge told Fox’s lawyers to retain all internal communications, starting from March 20 of this year, that related to Mr. Murdoch’s role at Fox News. That was the date the lawyers submitted a letter to Judge Davis asking that Mr. Murdoch and other Fox Corporation executives not be forced to testify at the trial in person, saying they had “limited knowledge of pertinent facts.” The letter did not mention that Mr. Murdoch was also a Fox News executive.Judge Davis said he would weigh whether any additional sanctions should be placed on Fox.He also said he was very concerned that there had been “misrepresentations to the court.”“This is very serious,” Judge Davis said.Davida Brook, a lawyer for Dominion, told the court that they were still receiving relevant documents from Fox, with the trial just days away.“We keep on learning about more relevant information from individuals other than Fox,” she said. “And to be honest we don’t really know what to do about that, but that is the situation we find ourselves in.”She pointed to one email that had recently been handed over, between Ms. Bartiromo and Ms. Powell on Nov. 7, 2020. In the email, Ms. Powell was forwarding evidence to Ms. Bartiromo that Dominion said was proof Fox had acted recklessly: an email from a woman Ms. Powell relied on as a source who exhibited signs of delusion, claiming, for instance, that she was aware of voter fraud because she had special powers, including the ability to time travel.“I just spoke to Eric and told him you gave very imp info,” Ms. Bartiromo wrote back to Ms. Powell, most likely referring to Eric Trump, Mr. Trump’s son.Ms. Brook also played two recordings for the court of pre-interviews, which are preliminary conversations before an on-air interview, conducted by Ms. Bartiromo that Ms. Brook said were received only after they were revealed in legal complaints filed by Abby Grossberg, a former Fox News producer who is suing the network.The evidence included recordings of the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo talking with former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.Roy Rochlin/Getty ImagesIn one of the recordings, on Nov. 8, 2020, Ms. Bartiromo asks Mr. Giuliani about Dominion’s software. In it, he admits that he doesn’t have hard evidence to back up the claim that the software could be manipulated, saying it was “being analyzed right now.” When Ms. Bartiromo asks about a conspiracy theory circulating at the time that claimed Dominion was connected to Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, Mr. Giuliani says: “Yeah, I’ve read that. I can’t prove that yet.”A Fox News spokeswoman said in a statement on Wednesday: “As counsel explained to the court, Fox produced the supplemental information from Ms. Grossberg when we first learned it.”Justin Nelson, another lawyer for Dominion, told Judge Davis that had Fox Corporation, the parent company, been quicker to share the information about Mr. Murdoch’s role as an officer of Fox News, the universe of documents Dominion could have obtained during discovery from him and other Fox Corporation executives would have been much larger. He also said that Fox might have failed to produce relevant documents.“We have been litigating based upon this false premise that Rupert Murdoch wasn’t an officer of Fox News,” he said.The question of whether Mr. Murdoch made decisions as a corporate officer of Fox News cuts to the heart of Dominion’s case. It has tried to prove — and Fox has repeatedly denied — that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of Fox Corporation, were closely involved in overseeing Fox News coverage of the 2020 election. Their decisions, Dominion has argued, directly affected what Fox broadcast about the voting technology company and, more broadly, fed a climate inside the network where hosts and producers amplified misinformation as part of a plan to win back viewers who had stopped watching after Mr. Trump’s loss.Proving so would mean that the larger Fox Corporation — not just Fox News — could also be found liable for defaming Dominion.Mr. Nelson argued that the case should be split in two so that Dominion lawyers could separately pursue action against Fox Corporation now that Dominion could obtain more information from executives. Judge Davis declined, but he expressed concern that Fox’s legal team had not been forthcoming with the information, despite being asked multiple times whether Mr. Murdoch was a corporate officer for Fox News.“I need people to tell me the truth,” he said. “And by the way, omission is a lie.”Dan K. Webb, a lawyer for Fox, pushed back on the assertion from Dominion, saying that both he and even Mr. Murdoch didn’t realize he also held the executive chair role at Fox News.“On a day-to-day basis, Mr. Rupert Murdoch had nothing to do with making decisions with what goes on the air on Fox News,” Mr. Webb said.In an emailed statement, a Fox News spokeswoman said: “Rupert Murdoch has been listed as executive chairman of Fox News in our S.E.C. filings since 2019 and this filing was referenced by Dominion’s own attorney during his deposition.”Judge Davis admonished Fox’s lawyers, saying he had previously asked for clarity on who had corporate responsibilities at Fox News but had not heard back.“What do I do with attorneys that aren’t straightforward with me?” he asked. More

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      Judge Limits Fox’s Options for Defense in Dominion Trial

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      A Delaware judge said Fox News could not argue newsworthiness to defend airing false claims, and limited how Dominion Voting Systems could refer to the Jan. 6 attack.WILMINGTON, Del. — A judge ruled on Tuesday that Fox News could not argue that it broadcast false information about Dominion Voting Systems on the basis that the allegations were newsworthy, limiting a key line of defense for the network as it faces the beginning of a potentially costly defamation trial next week.The judge, Eric M. Davis of Delaware Superior Court, also ruled that Dominion could not refer to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol except in very narrow circumstances, saying he did not want jurors to be prejudiced by events that weren’t relevant to the central question in the case: Did Fox air wild claims about Dominion’s purported involvement in a conspiracy to steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald J. Trump knowing that they were lies?In the first of two days of pretrial hearings, Judge Davis set many of the parameters that will govern how the trial is run, including what kinds of arguments the 12-person jury can hear and what questions lawyers may ask during jury selection to weed out those they believe would not be impartial.The hearing covered matters large and seemingly small, from the application of the First Amendment to how jurors may take notes.Judge Davis said he would allow lawyers to ask potential jurors about their cable news viewing habits and whether they watched Fox News programs — or intentionally avoided them. He will not, however, permit questions about how someone voted.In another ruling, the judge denied a motion from Dominion that sought to limit how Fox lawyers could invoke the First Amendment, leaving the network with some space to argue that the Constitution shields it from liability.The lawsuit, in which Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages, is teeing up a major test of the First Amendment and, depending on the outcome, could renew questions about whether defamation law adequately protects victims of misinformation campaigns.While legal experts have said Dominion’s case is unusually strong, defamation suits are extremely difficult to win because the law essentially requires proof of the defendants’ state of mind. Dominion’s burden will be to convince a jury that people inside Fox acted with actual malice, meaning either that they knew the allegations they broadcast were false but did so anyway, or that they acted so recklessly they overlooked facts that would have proved them wrong.Fox has argued that while it understood many of the claims made by its guests about Dominion were false, they were still worth covering as inherently newsworthy. Fox’s lawyers have taken the position that there is nothing more newsworthy than claims by a former president of the United States that an election wasn’t credible.Judge Eric M. Davis said he would allow lawyers to ask potential jurors about their cable news viewing habits and whether they watched Fox News programs.John Taggart for The New York TimesBut Judge Davis disagreed.“Just because someone is newsworthy doesn’t mean you can defame someone,” he said, referring to pro-Trump lawyers like Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani, who appeared repeatedly on Fox News and Fox Business in the weeks after the 2020 election and linked Dominion to various conspiracy theories.The judge admonished Fox’s lawyers, saying they cannot make the argument that the false statements about Dominion came from guests like Ms. Powell and not from Fox hosts. That argument is irrelevant, he said, because the fact remains that Fox is responsible as the broadcaster.Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani. The pro-Trump lawyers appeared repeatedly on Fox News and Fox Business in the weeks after the 2020 election and linked Dominion to various conspiracy theories.Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press“It’s a publication issue, not a who-said-it issue,” he said.Dan K. Webb, a lawyer representing Fox, explained that hosts would testify that they weren’t certain about the truth of the allegations but covered them because the former president and his lawyers said they could prove them.“The hosts will say during that time period, 15, 20 days, they were careful not to repeat the allegation,” Mr. Webb said.Judge Davis responded, “Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it’s true.”It was not the only tense exchange between the judge and Fox lawyers on Tuesday. At one point, a lawyer for Dominion, Justin Nelson, informed Judge Davis that Fox had disclosed only within the last 48 hours that Rupert Murdoch, whose family controls the Fox media empire, had a larger role in Fox News than the company had initially let on.By not acknowledging the extent of Mr. Murdoch’s responsibility for Fox News, the personal communications of his that Dominion could review were “significantly more limited,” Mr. Nelson said.Judge Davis was not pleased. “This is a problem,” he said. “I need to feel comfortable that when you represent something to me that it’s true,” he added.Fox has also made the argument that its actions were not defamatory because many hosts and guests said on the air that there was a lack of convincing evidence that suggested widespread voter fraud.Judge Davis rejected this position, too.“You can’t absolve yourself of defamation by merely putting somebody on at another time to say something different,” he said.In asking for such a large settlement against Fox, Dominion has cited the death threats its employees have received. People have shown up outside its Denver headquarters armed and left voice mail messages threatening to blow up its offices.Judge Davis on Tuesday limited how Dominion can refer to those threats in front of jurors, ruling that it may not mention specific content. He said he did not want to leave jurors with the impression that Fox was responsible for the actions of third parties.The trial begins on Monday, with jury selection expected to wrap up by the end of this week.Before Tuesday, the judge had already ruled that Dominion could compel several high-profile Fox executives and hosts to testify in person, including Mr. Murdoch; Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News Media; and the Fox News personalities Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro. More

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      Fox Argues Top Executives Weren’t Involved in Voter Fraud Broadcasts

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      Lawyers for the company, which faces a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit, are pushing for a judge to rule in their favor before a trial.WILMINGTON, Del. — Fox Corporation executives, including Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, had no direct involvement in what aired on the company’s cable news channels, and therefore their company should not be found liable in a $1.6 billion defamation case, lawyers for Fox argued Wednesday in a Delaware court.The argument was part of Fox’s request for a pretrial victory. Dominion Voting Systems has accused both Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, of defaming the business. Dominion says Fox’s shows repeatedly linked its voting machines to a vast conspiracy of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.Erin Murphy, a lawyer for both Fox Corporation and Fox News, said there was no evidence that corporate executives were involved in the Fox News shows in question. She said Dominion would need to show that they had directly participated in the broadcasts to meet the high standard needed to prove defamation.Ms. Murphy conceded that some of the executives had the power to bar certain guests from the shows, but said: “It’s not enough for them to show that they have the ability to step in. They have to have been involved.”Fox has asked that Fox Corporation be dropped from the lawsuit.Dominion must prove that Fox knowingly broadcast false information about the company, or was reckless enough to disregard substantial evidence that the claims were not true. Defamation cases have traditionally proved hard to win because of the First Amendment’s broad free speech protections. But legal experts say Dominion may have enough evidence to clear that high bar.Dominion, too, is asking for summary judgment; its legal team gave its arguments in Delaware Superior Court on Tuesday. The judge, Eric M. Davis, said he would make his decision by April 11. A jury trial is scheduled to start April 17.Judge Davis told both sides on Wednesday that he preferred for trial witnesses to appear in person rather than over a video link, setting up the possibility that Fox News hosts like Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson could show up. He said Rupert Murdoch might also be compelled to testify in person, though he did not issue any decisions on the matter.Fox lawyers had submitted a letter to the judge on Monday asking that Mr. Murdoch and some other executives not be compelled to testify, saying that it would amount to “hardships” on the witnesses and that their testimony would “add nothing other than media interest.”After Fox finished its arguments, a lawyer for several media outlets, including The New York Times, asked the judge to review redactions that Fox had made to some of the communications it handed over, arguing that Fox kept too much confidential. Judge Davis said he would consider the request.Judge Davis also remarked on a lawsuit filed in Delaware on Monday by a Fox News producer, Abby Grossberg. She argues that Fox lawyers coerced her into providing misleading information in her deposition in the Dominion lawsuit.Judge Davis said the lawsuit had been originally assigned to him but then given to another judge in Delaware Superior Court.Fox News said in a statement on Wednesday: “Despite the noise and confusion that Dominion has generated by presenting cherry-picked quotes without context, this case is ultimately about the First Amendment protections of the media’s absolute need to cover the news.” More

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      Fox and Dominion Urge Judge to Rule on Case

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      At the start of a pretrial hearing for the $1.6 billion defamation trial, the judge said he was still weighing whether to issue a summary judgment.A Delaware judge overseeing Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News said in a pretrial hearing on Tuesday that he was still weighing whether to issue a summary judgment for either side in the case.In a hearing in Wilmington, Del., on Tuesday, lawyers for Fox News and Dominion both pushed the judge, Eric M. Davis of the Delaware Superior Court, to rule on the case without a jury. Dominion, an election technology company, is accusing Fox of spreading false claims of widespread vote-rigging in the 2020 presidential election.“I haven’t made a decision,” Judge Davis said.The case centers on Fox’s coverage of the 2020 election, when President Donald J. Trump and his supporters began to spread false claims about widespread voter fraud.On Tuesday, Dominion argued that a trove of internal communications and depositions it had obtained showed that Fox executives and hosts had known that some of the claims about election fraud were false but had given them airtime anyway. Fox asked Judge Davis to dismiss the case outright, saying its actions were protected by the First Amendment.A trial is scheduled to begin on April 17.The lawsuit poses a sizable threat to Fox’s business and reputation. Dominion must prove that Fox knowingly broadcast false information about the company, or was reckless enough to disregard substantial evidence that the claims were not true — a legal standard known as “actual malice.” While defamation cases have traditionally proved hard to win, legal experts say Dominion may have enough evidence to clear that high bar.Justin Nelson, a lawyer for Dominion, told the court that it had plenty of evidence that Fox knew what it was doing.Mr. Nelson cited, for example, an excerpt from a deposition by Joe Dorrego, the chief financial officer of Fox News, who was asked whether Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the top executives of Fox News’s parent company, knew that the claims were being aired on the network. Mr. Dorrego answered: “They were certainly aware that the allegations were being reported on Fox News.”“They allowed people to come on the air to make those charges, despite knowing they are false,” Mr. Nelson told the judge.Erin Murphy, a lawyer for Fox, argued in court on Tuesday that a reasonable viewer of Fox News and Fox Business would have understood that the hosts were merely reporting that the president and his lawyers were making the fraud claims, which was newsworthy, and not making factual statements.“We do not think that we are just scot-free simply because a guest said something rather than a host,” Ms. Murphy said. “What we resist is that Dominion’s position seems to be that we are automatically liable because a guest said something.”Ms. Murphy told the judge that there was more context for the shows and statements singled out by Dominion in its complaint that proved the hosts had been merely presenting statements of fact. As an example, she referred to a Dec. 12, 2020, broadcast of “Fox & Friends,” during which the hosts asked Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, about legal challenges relating to voter fraud.“I don’t see how somebody watching that show thinks that by merely asking the president’s lawyer ‘What are you alleging and what evidence do you have to support it?’ the hosts are saying we believe these allegations to be true,” Ms. Murphy said.Ms. Murphy added that there was no evidence that any Fox Corporation executive had been involved in the airing of defamatory statements.Lawyers for Fox are scheduled to finish their arguments before the judge on Wednesday. More