Fox News lawyers won't be able to use key defense arguments when jury hears Dominion case
Speaking with MSNBC host Katie Phang on Sunday, Jeremy Peters of the New York Times stated that lawyers for Fox will enter the courtroom where the Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit will be heard with their key defense points already made unavailable.
Reacting to a ruling on Friday that the case will be heard by a jury over Fox's protestations, host Phang stated, "Judge Eric Davis on Friday decimated much of Fox's potential trial defenses, ruling that Fox cannot invoke the neutral report privilege because the evidence does not support that Fox conducted good faith reporting. The judge also blocking Fox from using the fair reporting privilege because the statements made by Fox and its guests were not related to official proceedings."
Asked to explain what it means for the Fox lawyers, Peters replied, "When the jury gets the case several of Fox's key arguments will not be available for its lawyers to make."
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"Several of these will have already been decided in Dominion''s favor because of the judge's decision on Friday," he explained. "So what this does is it significantly limits Fox's ability to mount a defense and leaves for the jury the key question of whether or not there is enough evidence to show that Fox hosts, producers and executives knew what they were putting on the air was false or at least recklessly disregarded information showing that it was false."
"That is how you get to potentially significant and sizeable judgment against Fox News," he added. "Dominion is asking for $1.6 billion and appears that, unless this settles, which I think it's highly unlikely at this point, and has already been highly unlikely because Fox appears to be preserving its options for appeal here, this is going to head to the jury and it will be one of the most significant and far-reaching defamation suits against a major media company that we have seen in decades."
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