(Wilmington) A voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit will be brought against Fox News for broadcasting false claims about the 2020 presidential election, after a Delaware judge acquitted a jury to decide whether the conservative network acted with genuine malice.
Supreme Court Justice Eric Davis ruled that neither Fox nor the Dominion Voting System presented a convincing case for determining whether Fox acted maliciously without taking the case to a jury. But it also ruled that the statements challenged by Dominion constituted defamation “in and of itself” under New York law. This means that Dominion did not have to prove damages to prove Fox liable.
“The evidence developed in this civil suit proves that[il] Justice Davis wrote in his summary decision.
The ruling clears the way for the trial to begin in mid-April.
Dominion is suing the network for $1.6 billion, alleging that Fox defamed it by repeatedly publishing false claims about the company’s hardware and accompanying software. Court documents and testimony revealed that many Fox hosts and executives did not believe the allegations were true, but continued to air them.
Fox said he was simply covering up very important allegations. The coverage fueled an ecosystem of misinformation surrounding former President Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election that has persisted ever since.
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