Fox Agrees To Pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 Million Just After Jury Selection In Defamation Lawsuit

With a ruling that basically said not only did Fox lie about Dominion, it did so despite being well aware of the truth, the Delaware court basically dared the alleged “news” agency to keep fighting Dominion’s defamation lawsuit.

The evidence Dominion had already obtained was damning, as the court pointed out in its denial of Fox New Network’s (FNN) motion to dismiss:

The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.

Fox appeared to have run afoul of the “actual malice” standard, which says reporters can’t be held liable for reporting things they believed to be true, even if it’s later proven these accusations were false. Fox got it backwards. Information obtained by Dominion during the lawsuit showed plenty of Fox anchors, executives, and producers knew what they were reporting about Dominion was false, but they were willing to continue doing so because doing otherwise meant ceding ground to “journalists” working for even further right-skewing networks like OAN and Newsmax.

Fox’s attorneys made things even worse by engaging in discovery violations. These violations were uncovered shortly before jury selection, leading the court to hit Fox with sanctions, including holding it financially responsible for a second set of depositions by Dominion, should it have chosen to go digging for more usable evidence. It also ordered the special master overseeing discovery to investigate Fox’s efforts during this case to see if it had engaged in any other violations.

All of this has apparently persuaded Fox to hand over an extremely large amount of its money to Dominion, as ABC reports.

“Truth matters. Lies have consequences,” said Justin Nelson, an attorney for Dominion Voting Systems, as he announced details of the company’s settlement with Fox News during a press conference following the court’s adjournment.

“Today’s settlement of $787,500,000 represents vindication and accountability,” Nelson said. “Today represents a ringing endorsement for truth and for democracy.”

That’s roughly half of the $1.6 billion Dominion listed as damages in its lawsuit when it filed it in 2021. The rest of Dominion’s litigation targets don’t have nearly this much money to spend on settlements, so it behooves them to start pitching lowball offers before courts start moving these lawsuits forward. Rudy Giuliani doesn’t have three-quarters of a billion to spend. Neither does truly ridiculous person Sidney Powell, who once was once advising Donald Trump. Newsmax and OAN might be grabbing marketshare by catering to people too far right to consider Fox News credible, but they don’t have the billions Fox has to play with.

This settlement occurred right after jury selection was finalized and right after the court issued an order holding Fox 100% financially responsible for any costs incurred by the special master during its investigation of Fox’s discovery violations.

Fox seems actually a bit contrite following this settlement, as one would expect when you’re paying out nearly a billion dollars, but it immediately followed that up with a second sentence that erases any of the contrition, by going right back to misrepresenting reality:

“We are pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems,” Fox News officials said in a statement after an agreement had been reached. “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.”

At least Fox admits it said knowingly false things about Dominion. However, it’s ridiculous for it to claim it has a “commitment” to “journalistic standards,” considering it has spent years steadily shedding these standards as it sought to make inroads into a supposedly underserved demographic: white male right-wing crackpots.

Equally absurd is the judge’s comment regarding the lawyering:

[Judge Eric] Davis commended both teams, saying, “I’ve been on the bench since 2010 … and I think this is the best lawyering I’ve had, ever.“

Really? The “best?” Because just days ago, Judge Davis was saying things like this to Fox’s legal reps in response to discovery violations:

To Fox attorney Matthew Carter, Davis said: “You have a credibility problem.”

As does Fox itself. It bought itself out of this lawsuit. And that’s good for Dominion, which earns itself some litigation firepower by convincing Fox to pay out nearly a billion dollars rather than roll the dice on an unpredictable jury trial. And while it would have extremely enjoyable to obtain even more details about Fox’s bizarre interpretation of “high journalistic standards,” it also makes sense for Dominion to utilize a massive cash infusion to repair the wounds to its reputation inflicted by Fox anchors who apparently knew the narrative they were pushing was false, but decided maintaining market share was preferable to being honest with viewers.