A New York state appeals court rejected Fox’s bid to dismiss a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit by voting machine company Smartmatic over statements made on air after the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Reuters reported on Thursday.
The decision was issued by a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division in Manhattan.
Fox Corporation and Fox News Network were both named in the 2021 lawsuit, as were on-air personalities Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, frequent Fox commentator Rudy Giuliani and attorney Sidney Powell, who was indicted along with Donald Trump in the Georgia election fraud case.
In April 2023, shortly before Fox settled for $787 million with a different voting machine company, Dominion Voting Systems, the media giant issued a statement that they were “ready to defend [the Smartmatic] case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025.” In the statement, Fox dismissed Smartmatic’s claims as “implausible, disconnected from reality and on [its] face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms.”
Due to confusion between the two companies, Dominion has an online fact sheet to explain that it is a separate company from Smartmatic and does not use or license Smartmatic software.
Dominion had sued Fox News for $800 million and the whopping settlement was reached just before the case was set to go to trial. The terms of the settlement did not require Fox News to apologize for making false claims about the election.
Smartmatic also sued conservative channel Newsmax for false claims about the 2020 election; the defamation suit was settled in September for an undisclosed amount. Newsmax claimed that the company was involved in rigging the election, while Smartmatic further clarified that they had only provided services in Los Angeles County.
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