Dominion Sues Fox News Network: Why This Case Is Different

Dominion Voting Systems has already sued a number of individuals for defamation, including attorney Sidney Powell and My Pillow’s Mike Lindell.  These lawsuits all concern post-election statements that questioned the integrity of Dominion’s products and how manipulation affected the presidential election. Today, they also sued Fox News Network (FOX) for $1.6 billion.

What makes this case different?

When you sue an individual for defamation, you are maintaining that the person knowingly made false statements about you (or that the statements were made with reckless disregard for the truth), that they were believable to the audience, and that you can trace your damages to the statements they made.

The defense that individuals offer, even assuming that their statements were wrong, often hinge on the credibility of the person offering the opinion. Remember, for example, that a prior defamation case against Tucker Carlson was thrown out because he was a pundit and not a journalist. As his attorney stated: “No reasonable person” believes his statements to be factual.

Similarly, in the current defamation case against Sidney Powell, her lawyer’s motion to dismiss argued against her own credibility, explaining that much of what she said was (and was understood to be) overstatement and hyperbole. Again, no reasonable person would take what she said at face value.

News organizations are held to a different standard. It is expected that what they report as “news” will be accurately reported. News organizations are therefore generally careful to cover themselves from making false statements by using weasel words in their reporting. That is why their reporting of ongoing investigations so often uses the words “alleged” or “allegedly.” At times it may seem ridiculous to hear news reports talk about an “alleged shooter” when there is video of him, but this is the level of care news organizations take to ensure that they are not misrepresenting facts.

In a splendid move, the Dominion lawsuit against FOX “accuses” them of being a reputable news organization. Dominion notes that FOX has millions of regular viewers and reaches them through a vast variety of media. And, as a huge for-profit company, FOX’s primary concern is its financial bottom line.

Dominion further suggests that FOX, which once touted itself as conservative news outlet that was “fair and balanced”, morphed into an organization that tied its financial well-being to the adulation of Donald Trump and his most ardent supporters.

Seeing its viewership drop precipitously after FOX called the state of Arizona for Biden, and was chided for it by Trump, Dominion alleges that FOX needed to do something to reengage the faithful. They saw Dominion as an easy target to help promote the concept of election fraud.

In painstaking detail, the complaint shows how a variety of FOX news and opinion shows promoted the allegations by Guiliani, Powell, Lindell and others that accused Dominion of wrongdoing, One result, Dominion says, is that FOX reentered the good graces of Trump, recaptured its viewership, and improved its bottom line. The victim in this scenario was Dominion Voting Systems.

FOX cannot claim ignorance of its actions, according to Dominion. Ninety people within the FOX organization regularly received factual updates from Dominion about the security of its voting systems and the fact that it has no relationship to Smartmatic or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Numerous requests for retractions were ignored.

All of these allegations suggest that FOX is being held to a different standard than political pundits or individuals who are engaged in self-promotion. FOX has, according to Dominion, violated a public trust to their detriment.

Reminder: the filing of a lawsuit is just the first step in litigation. As always, Dominion will need to prove their allegations and show that the standards for defamation are met.

Sidney Powell’s Defamation Defense: No Reasonable Person Would Believe My Election Rigging Claims on FOX

Dominion Voting Systems sued Attorney Sidney Powell for $1.3 billion for defamation. The suit said that she knowingly made baseless claims about Dominion, its background, and the reliability of its results. The suit said that some of her comments were “inherently Improbable” if not “impossible.”

When you are sued, the first thing you try is to get the case thrown out before it is even considered. You might suggest that there are procedural reasons to have the case dismissed: wrong party being sued, wrong place to bring the lawsuit, wrong time to bring the suit, etc.

You can also claim that the complaint, even if everything in it is assumed to be true, would not give the person suing you any right to the relief they are requesting. This is called “failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.”

All of these arguments are raised in a “motion to dismiss.” Sidney Powell has raised virtually all of these arguments in her motion to dismiss the Dominion complaint.

For purposes of this note, I’ll focus on just the “failure to state a claim” argument.

You may remember from a couple of years ago that Tucker Carlson was sued for defamation. The complaint against him was dismissed because, according to the court, no reasonable person would believe that Carlson’s statements were factual. To put it bluntly, if you take what Tucker Carlson says on FOX at face value, you are stupid.

This is essentially the Sidney Powell defense. She quotes from the complaint’s allegations that her comments were “wild accusations” and “outlandish claims” to prove that a reasonable person would not believe her claims, even though they were repeated both on FOX and in some of her previously filed post-election lawsuits.

Tucker Carlson actually had a decent defense—that he is a pundit and not a journalist. It remains to be seen whether the judge will agree with Powell that her comments are, in actuality, political statements “that are inherently prone to exaggeration and hyperbole.”

Remember that defense: no reasonable person would believe her.