Just hours before the trial was set to start, Fox News agreed to a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over the defamation suit brought against them.
Many legal experts have already said that it was a good move by Fox News, as it prevents them from having to face a lot of public scrutiny over what would have come out in court.
A lawyer who was representing Dominion in the case said the settlement is worth more than $700 million. The lawsuit filed by Dominion was seeking $1.6 billion in damages.
The announcement of the settlement was announced on Tuesday by Eric Davis, the judge in Delaware Superior Court who was overseeing the case. Before opening statements were given in the case, Davis said the “case has been resolved.”
Dominion sued Fox News for defamation, claiming that the network and many of its anchors made false claims on the air regarding the 2020 presidential election results. It further claimed that the network’s anchors promoted claims made by former President Donald Trump that the presidential election was stolen from him, and that ballots that were cast on Dominion’s machines were ultimately “flipped” from Trump to his opponent in that race – Democrat Joe Biden.
Following the announcement of the settlement, many legal experts have come out and said it was a smart move for both Fox News and Dominion. For instance, former federal prosecutor Michael McAuliffe told Newsweek:
“A settlement makes sense for Dominion if the resolution includes both a significant monetary payment and an explicit acknowledgement that the statements highlighted in the lawsuit were false.
“For Fox News, the settlement is the preferred outcome because it can avoid a prolonged and public display of its internal machinations about the false statements and its decision to broadcast the false statements anyway. A settlement also avoids a legal judgment against Fox that was possible, even likely, if a jury heard the defamation case and reached a verdict.”
Another former federal prosecutor, Neama Rahmani, told Newsweek he wasn’t at all surprised that the case ended up in a settlement. He explained:
“The writing was on the wall and it wasn’t a question of whether Fox would lose the lawsuit but how badly.
“The judge already ruled that the network’s statements were false and that they were not newsworthy and protected by the First Amendment. The court had also ordered Rupert Murdoch and his son to testify, in what would have been an embarrassing cross-examination for Fox’s chairman.”
While Fox News issued statements that it was “pleased to have reached a settlement” in the dispute, many people are disappointed that it ended this way. While these people don’t have any skin in the game, they were hoping that Fox News was going to be hung out to try, so to speak, and forced to face their lies in a court of law.
Now, those people won’t be able to celebrate the demise of Fox News, though they might bask in the fact that the network has to turn over $700 million to Dominion Voting Systems.
