Fox, Dominion urge judge to rule in $1.6 billion defamation suit ahead of April trial

Both Fox and Dominion made their arguments before Judge Eric Davis in Delaware’s Superior Court on Tuesday as part of their request for summary judgement, meaning they are seeking a ruling based on their arguments and evidence without going to trial.

However, Fox and Dominion didn’t close up their arguments on Tuesday and will meet in court Wednesday morning. Davis, still weighing their arguments, said he wasn’t sure if he could rule on certain things ahead of the trial.

In recent weeks, a trove of evidence gathered by both sides – thousands of pages of full excerpts of testimony from depositions, text messages and emails – has been published in both sides’ push for summary judgement.

Dominion brought the defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp. and its right wing cable networks Fox News and Fox Business, arguing the channels and their hosts pushed false claims that its voting machines were rigged in the 2020 election that saw Joe Biden triumph over Donald Trump.

Dominion’s attorneys on Tuesday noted nearly two dozen instances in which they believe hosts on Fox News and Fox Business broadcasts repeated claims of election fraud – and continuously had guests on such as Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell who pushed those claims – as if they were fact. To support this, they called on the reams of text messages and emails in which hosts such as Tucker Carlson, communicate their doubts about the guest and election fraud claims.

Davis on Tuesday urged Dominion’s lawyers to point to statements made on air to prove their defamation case rather than what was said in internal communications.

The attorneys homed in on broadcasts led by Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, as well as some from Carlson, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro, in which claims of issues with Dominion’s software algorithms, bribery and cybersecurity were repeated on air after they were proven false.

Tweets from Dobbs during the time were also called on as part of evidence. “There seems to be a Dobbs problem,” Davis, the judge presiding over the case, later said to a Fox attorney.

Dominion attorney Justin Nelson said Tuesday that it has lined up such examples as the voting machine company has to prove that for each broadcast there was at least one person “who knew the charges were false or recklessly disregarded the truth.”

Dominion lawyers also pointed to Fox’s so-called “brain room,” where fact checking for its programs is done. Dominion alleges it was ignored by Fox executives and hosts.