Fox Corp. will face trial over 2020 election defamation lawsuit
By Marshall Cohen | CNN
Washington (CNN) — A New York appeals court ruled Thursday that Fox Corporation must face Smartmatic’s mammoth defamation lawsuit over the airing of 2020 election lies on Fox News, dealing a blow to the Rupert Murdoch-controlled media giant.
Smartmatic, the voting technology company that Fox News guests and hosts falsely accused of rigging the 2020 election, sued both Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp in 2021. As part of its lawsuit, Smartmatic alleged that Rupert Murdoch and his eldest son, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch, directed the cable network to embrace a “disinformation campaign to win back its audience” after Joe Biden won the election.
The latest ruling represents a key victory for Smartmatic’s efforts to go after the right-wing media outlet over its promotion of debunked claims that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
The Fox entities have denied wrongdoing. A Fox Corp. spokesperson did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment.
Both Fox News and Fox Corp. have mounted multiple unsuccessful efforts to dismiss the massive defamation lawsuit, which was filed in New York state court.
In its ruling Thursday, the unanimous New York appeals court cited, in part, similar legal findings from the Delaware judge who oversaw a related case brought by Dominion Voting Systems over Fox’s airing of 2020 election lies. Fox paid more than $787 million to settle that lawsuit in 2023, in the largest publicly known defamation settlement in US history.
“Here, consistent with the Dominion decisions, we find that the allegations in the first amended complaint relating to Fox Corporation directing the other defendants to undertake a disinformation campaign… sufficiently allege Fox Corporation’s ‘direct liability’ for the challenged defamatory statements,” the New York appellate ruling said.
The lawsuit is still in the discovery phase but could head to trial later this year, unless there is an out-of-court settlement, as is common in media defamation cases.
A lawyer for Smartmatic, Erik Connolly, hailed the ruling in a statement.
“The New York Supreme Court rebuffed Fox Corporation’s latest attempt to escape responsibility for the defamation campaign it orchestrated against Smartmatic following the 2020 election,” Connolly said. “Fox Corporation attempted, and failed, to have this case dismissed, and it must now answer for its actions at trial.”
The decision comes after Fox Corp. was dealt another consequential legal setback. Last month, a Delaware judge ruled that major Fox shareholders — New York City’s pension funds and the state of Oregon — can move forward with their lawsuit alleging that the company board of directors failed to protect investors by allowing Fox News to spread lies about the 2020 election, which led to defamation lawsuits.
Citing evidence from the Dominion case, the judge said the lawsuit “sufficiently pleads that Murdoch faces a substantial likelihood of liability for consciously causing or willfully allowing Fox News to broadcast defamatory content.