A US judge on Friday ordered a jury trial in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News over the 2020 presidential election.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, in a blow to the Rupert Murdoch-owned television network, denied a bid by Fox News to get the suit dismissed.
Instead, the judge said Dominion, a voting technology company, had proven some elements of its defamation claim, and the case should be heard by a jury.
A trial is expected to begin in April, and may be one of the most consequential defamation cases ever heard in the United States.
Dominion sued Fox News in Delaware in March 2021 alleging that the news behemoth promoted Donald Trump’s false claims that its machines were used to rig the presidential election, while knowing they were untrue.
Judge Davis said the evidence presented at a two-day hearing between the parties demonstrated that it is “crystal clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election, are true.”
Fox News claims it was only reporting on Trump’s allegations, not supporting them, and is protected by the First Amendment free speech clause.
It can be difficult for plaintiffs to win defamation suits in the United States; Dominion will have to prove Fox News acted with actual malice, a tough burden to meet.
Murdoch, the Fox News owner, admitted in a deposition in the case that some hosts on his news network promoted the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Murdoch denied, though, that the network in its entirety had pushed Trump’s baseless claim that he lost to Democrat Joe Biden because of widespread fraud.
