Fox News, Dominion Reach $787.5M Settlement in Defamation Suit
Fox News Channel and Dominion Voting Systems reached a settlement in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit just as their much-publicized trial was about to get underway Tuesday.
Per our sister site Variety, the agreement came just before lawyers for both parties were about to give opening statements in Delaware’s Superior Court. Judge Eric M. Davis announced that both factions had “resolved their case.”
Dominion claimed it was owed damages resulting from Fox News’ airing of false claims about its role in the 2020 election. In the past few months, emails and texts gathered for the trial from Fox executives and anchors hinted that people working at the company knowingly put forth false information about the election and Dominion’s involvement in it.
Justin Nelson, an attorney representing Dominion, said the case was settled for $787.5 million, the Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr reported Tuesday.
In a statement released after the settlement was reached, Fox said:
We are pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems. We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.
In a separate legal matter, another voting-technology company named Smartmatic has filed a $2.7 billion suit against the cable network claiming similar dissemination of false information.
I hope somewhere in the paperwork was a “no more blatant lying” clause, but what am I thinking…..Faux News would have to go off the air. *Fingers crossed*
So it all gets swept under the rug at FOX?
Dominion should NEVER have settled.
This REALLY PISSES ME OFF.
That’s a ton of money… probably more than they would have gotten after a trial and all the appeals… plus Fox has admitted to lying.
It was a lawsuit by shareholders who wanted to be made whole. They did exactly what they needed to.
Accountability for Fox isn’t theirs to personally solve for.
Me too!
Me too. But it’s more than the company is actually worth. It’s sad that everything seems to come down to money.
Well that blows. Was looking forward to those Fox News “personalities” caving under oath.
Wow, what a number. For them to settle that high they must have been totally cooked. That isn’t the kind of money you pay to avoid the expense of a trial because trial probably wouldn’t even be 1% of that. You pay out that big solely to avoid having to pay much worse in damages.
It sounds as if they settled this case because a trial would have revealed information that could be used in that other company’s even more expensive lawsuit.
FOX was damned by their own verified e-mails & internal communications which left no doubt they knew for a fact that the claims against Dominion were false (even some stating they,personally,were disgusted by the lies) but they continued to present them because that’s what riled up their base & got them ratings boosts.
The money is irrelevant.
Unless Fox repeatedly airs apologies, and fires those who enabled these lies, to Dominion, there is no guarantee that the same chuckleheads won’t repeat their lies in the future.
And if you don’t think that’s true, ask Seth Rich’s family…
Well it came out either today or recently that Fox settled with Seth Rich’s family and they not only had to sign an NDA about it, the news a settlement was reached wasn’t allowed to be released till after the 2020 election
Not that I had any doubt, but that high a settlement tells me all I need to know, no matter how Fox tries to spin it.
So sad. I wanted Fox to go bankrupt and shut down. Fox IMHO is no different than a Nazi propaganda machine.
Precisely. Dominion should never have settled in my opinion. The MAGA crowd will never even know about this as Fox will continue to lie, especially at night.
Disappointing. Dominion should have stayed the course and gone to trial. The money should’ve been secondary to the truth. Instead, Fox News pays to keep the whole thing quiet, and they’ll be back slinging lies by the next election.
.
(I kid. it won’t take that long, they’ll be lying by suppertime tonight.)
I totally agree as I posted above.
Precisely. Dominion should never have settled in my opinion. The MAGA crowd will never even know about this as Fox will continue to lie, especially at night.
It is not exactly quiet. Headlines in all the major newspapers and news channels across the world. Fox news having to admit on air today that they have settled and that the claims were false. That on top of weeks of leaks and reports on who said what behind the scenes. In addition to having to pay the highest known settlement figure in a defamation case. This 1 case being paid the same as numerous other cases settled by Fox. Make no mistake this has hurt them and now they have to do it all again with a different company who will have been watching careful,y the tactics taken by dominion.
BOO! I wanted to see Dominion pulverize Faux Noise into nothingness!
Bad decision. Fox will now claim “victory” and nobody has to admit under oath that they were lying their keisters off. And $787.5 million is roughly what they take in from six months’ worth of cable fees.
I switched over to see what they were reporting on. Guess what? Leftists created AI to spread lies and disinformation to patriotic Americans.
Nope. Nothing’s changed.
Fox can claim whatever they want. Even if it had been 3 times this amount Fox will have claimed victory. I think we have established they are not shy in hiding the truth. I think also people have forgotten that it is not Dominions responsibility to correct what was wrong with Fox news. They wanted recompense to the damage done to their company. They got it.
Was an NDA of some sort signed by the company, if not hopefully everything will be released at some point. Shame on Fox for what they did to this country.
What they did to the country was done way back with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrinch. At least Rush got what he deserved. I’m sure the daises growing over his grave are black and wilted.
Agree Fox wasn’t the first and won’t be the last.
“Those who can make people believe absurdities, can make people commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire
I am bitterly disappointed that Dominion did not proceed to trial. After watching highly knowledgeable and much respected legal analysts on MSNBC since the moment the settlement was announced – I am well versed in exactly why this is still ‘a victory.’ But I wanted to see the lying Faux anchors/media moguls testifying and to have them subjected to abject humiliation day after day, week after week. At the very least there should have been a binding clause forcing each and every anchor to read truthful statements (prepared by Dominion) on each program admitting their callous and deliberate disregard of the truth. I feel cheated.
At this point, any Fox News viewer who still watches them, even after all the discovery came out, is intentionally misinformed.
Where do you get your news from CNN or MSNBC.
Sadly, you are in a cult and should seek deprogramming help ASAP.
I’ll bite…either/or. You know why? Neither one of those networks was getting sued or had to settle for 3/4 of a BILLION dollars due to LIES. What else ya got, spanky?
I agree that they’re intentionally misinformed, but my dad – who watches Fox News 12+ hours a day – had no idea they were even being sued. Unless Tucker Carlson is reporting it night after night, they don’t know it’s happening. So they don’t even have a clue about the discovery information that came out.
Anyone near a TV to hear how Fox is spining this story? if they are even talking about it?
I also think Dominion should not have settled. And I find it rather disingenuous that Fox, in its release, chose only to highlight that some of Dominion’s claims were supposedly “false” yet conveniently sidestepping the claims that brought it to pay out $787.5 million. Now what will this mean for Fox programming, both in news and for entertainment?
LOVE FOX NEWS!
It’s sad that you enjoy being lied to.
Your cheating boyfriend must love you. When he’s hugging you, he’s probably looking over your shoulder at his phone reading texts from his real girlfriend.
Fox probably realized more damaging information would come out if this had gone to trial.
DANG! I was really hoping Dominion would force a trial so the morons who watch FAUX could see them admit to being lying liars.
Would have been sweet to see Tucker and Hannity get grilled under cross examination. Or even better if somehow Dominion had managed to get into the settlement agreement thst Rupert and his minions had to publicly admit, on air, that they knowingly lied. I would have paid good money to see that
Why did Dominion settle for a paltry $787 million? They would have easily won their $1.6 billion lawsuit and on top of that, they would have been able to easily win punitive damages which would have raked in another $3-4 billion. Experts said they had more evidence than any lawsuit they’ve ever seen. Victory was a cake walk. Fox really screwed up and believe t or not $787 million is a piece of cake for Fox. Sorry about all the cake references.
Fox will likely settle with Smartmatic well before their $2.7 Bil lawsuit even gets to see the inside of a courtroom. All the documentation gathered from the Dominion case will be huge plus in addition to what Smartmatic has gathered on its own. No way will Fox attempt to refute the mountains of evidence! And maybe Smartmatic can force Fox, Hannity, Tucker, and others to each make a public apology as part of the settlement agreement.
It doesnt really matter. New polls show that a large number of Fox viewers who know they are being lied to don’t mind. They want the reaffirmation of their reality, even if deep down they know it is fake. Greatest country in the world for sure.
Its a shame this didn’t go to trial. The American people would have beneffited greatly by the anything that came out in discovery regarding both Dominion and Fox News.
All this does is put more money in lawyers’s pockets and exacerbate distrust of electronic voting machines and corporate news conglomerates.