Fox, Dominion reach $787M settlement over election claims

WILMINGTON, Del. — Fox and Dominion Voting Systems reached a $787 million settlement Tuesday in the voting machine company's defamation lawsuit, averting a trial in a case that exposed how the top-rated network chased viewers by promoting lies about the 2020 presidential election.

"The truth matters. Lies have consequences," Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson said in a news conference outside the courthouse after a judge announced the deal.

Dominion asked for $1.6 billion in arguing that Fox damaged its reputation by helping peddle phony conspiracy theories about its equipment switching votes from former President Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. Fox said the amount greatly overstated the value of the Colorado-based company.

The resolution in Delaware Superior Court follows a recent ruling by Judge Eric Davis in which he allowed the case to go to trial while emphasizing it was "CRYSTAL clear" that none of the allegations about Dominion by Trump allies aired on Fox were true.

In a statement shortly after the announcement, Fox News said the network acknowledged "the court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false." It did not respond to an inquiry asking for elaboration.

Inquiries to Dominion and Fox Corp. were not immediately returned.

Records in the lawsuit showed how Fox hosts and executives did not believe the claims by Trump's allies but aired them anyway, in part to win back viewers who fled the network after it correctly called hotly contested Arizona for Biden on election night. The race call infuriated Trump and many viewers who supported him.

The settlement, which does not need the judge's approval, will end a case that has proven a major embarrassment for Fox News. If the case had gone to trial, it also would have presented one of the sternest tests to a libel standard that has protected media organizations for more than a half-century.

Several First Amendment experts said Dominion's case was among the strongest they ever saw. Still, there was doubt about whether Dominion would be able to prove to a jury that people in a decision-making capacity at Fox could be held responsible for the network's airing of the falsehoods.

Dominion's lawyers argued that Fox defamed the voting machine company by making a deliberate decision to repeatedly air, in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election, false claims by Trump and his allies to appeal to viewers. Fox allowed guests to falsely claim Dominion rigged the election, flipped large numbers of votes to Biden through a secret algorithm, was owned by a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections for late President Hugo Chavez and bribed government officials.

A mountain of evidence — released in the form of deposition transcripts, internal memos and emails from the time — damaged Fox.

Dominion pointed to text and email messages in which Fox insiders discounted and sometimes mocked the vote manipulation claims. One Fox Corp. vice president called them "MIND BLOWINGLY NUTS."

The company sued both Fox News and its parent, Fox Corp., and said its business was significantly damaged.

During a deposition, Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, who founded the network, testified that he believed the 2020 election was fair and not stolen from Trump.

"Fox knew the truth," Dominion argued in court papers. "It knew the allegations against Dominion were 'outlandish' and 'crazy' and 'ludicrous' and 'nuts.' Yet it used the power and influence of its platform to promote that false story."

In his March 31 summary judgment ruling, Davis pointedly called out the news organization for airing falsehoods while noting how the bogus election claims persist, 2½ years after Trump lost his bid for reelection.

"The statements at issue were dramatically different than the truth," Davis said in that ruling. "In fact, although it cannot be attributed directly to Fox's statements, it is noteworthy that some Americans still believe the election was rigged."

In its defense, Fox said it was obligated to report on the most newsworthy of stories: a president claiming he was cheated out of reelection.

"We never reported those to be true," Fox lawyer Erin Murphy said. "All we ever did was provide viewers the true fact that these were allegations that were being made."

Fox said Dominion argued that the network was obligated to suppress the allegations or denounce them as false.

"Freedom of speech and of the press would be illusory if the prevailing side in a public controversy could sue the press for giving a forum to the losing side," Fox said in court papers.

In a 1964 case involving The New York Times, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the ability of public figures to sue for defamation. The court ruled that plaintiffs needed to prove that news outlets published or aired false material with "actual malice" — knowing such material was false or acting with a "reckless disregard" for whether or not it was true.

That provides news organizations with stout protection against libel judgments. Yet some conservatives attacked the nearly six-decade legal standard in recent years, including Trump and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who argued for making it easier to win a libel case.

Two Republican-nominated Supreme Court justices — Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — publicly expressed interest in revisiting the protection.