With the 2024 presidential election heating up, the 2020 presidential election still lingers in the background as litigation plays out in courts. On Wednesday, Jan. 24, a New York judge gave the voting technology company Smartmatic the green light to proceed with its defamation lawsuit against the parent company of Fox News, Fox Corp.
We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025.
Fox Spokesperson
The lawsuit alleges that Fox Corp. purposely and knowingly peddled false information that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump to boost ratings. New York Supreme Court Judge David Cohen rejected Fox News’ parent company’s request to throw out Smartmatic’s lawsuit.
Ruling against Fox Corp., Judge Cohen said Smartmatic “sufficiently alleged that (Fox) Corp. employees acted with malice by purposely and deliberating publishing knowingly false stories about plaintiffs in order to benefit (Fox) Corp.’s financial interest.”
Smartmatic filed its lawsuit in 2021 seeking more than $2 billion in damages from Fox Corp. Fox Corp. maintained that it had not defamed anyone and added that the lawsuit was an attack on the First Amendment.
After the ruling, a Fox spokesperson called the damage claims “disconnected from reality” and added that the Fox Corp. will not back down.
“We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025,” the spokesperson said.
According to the Straight Arrow News Media Miss™ tool, this story is a Media Miss for the right. The Media Landscape indicates that while left-leaning and center-oriented outlets are covering this story, fewer right-leaning outlets are reporting on the topic.
Meanwhile, in a separate ruling on Wednesday, Jan. 24, Judge Cohen gave Fox News the go-ahead to pursue counterclaims accusing Smartmatic of using its $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News’ parent company to impede the network’s First Amendment rights to free speech.
“…defendants’ argument here is that plaintiffs’ alleged damages are so extenuated from their actual lost profits that they were pleaded and/or sought in order to chill defendants’ free speech rights,” Judge Cohen wrote in part.
Cohen ruled that Fox News’ accusations have not yet been adjudicated in court and may proceed, going against Smartmatic’s argument that the claims were already shut down in a similar lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems. That lawsuit settled for more than $780 million last year.
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