(Wilmington) A voting machine company’s libel suit against Fox News for airing false claims about the 2020 presidential election will go to trial, after a Delaware judge cleared on Friday a jury to decide whether the conservative network acted with real malice.
Superior Court Judge Eric Davis ruled that neither Fox nor Dominion Voting Systems made a compelling case to determine whether Fox acted maliciously without the case going to a jury. But he also ruled that the statements Dominion challenged constituted defamation “per se” under New York law. This means that Dominion did not have to prove damages to establish Fox’s liability.
“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that[il] couldn’t be clearer that none of the statements relating to Dominion regarding the 2020 election are true,” Judge Davis wrote in his summary decision.
The ruling clears the way for a trial to begin in mid-April.
The Dominion Company is suing the network for $1.6 billion, claiming Fox defamed it by repeatedly spreading false claims about the company’s machines and accompanying software. Court documents and testimony revealed that many Fox hosts and executives did not believe the claims were true, but continued to air them.
Fox said he was simply covering up very newsworthy allegations. The coverage fueled an ecosystem of misinformation surrounding former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat that has persisted ever since.