A judge handed Dominion Voting Systems an early win in its defamation case against Fox Corporation, making the media company's defense much more difficult, an expert said.
Judge Eric Davis ruled and will instruct the jury that all of Fox News broadcasters' statements about Donald Trump's election loss were false, and Dominion's lawyers will present those during their opening statements and throughout the trial. Legal expert Harry Litman told MSNBC that would make the other element of Dominion's defamation case -- needing to prove that the statements were made actual malice -- substantially easier to prove.
"They're going to be instructed all these claims were false, 20 really vivid claims tracking the 'big lie,' and they're going to be instructed these are false," Litman said. "That already makes it seem very plausible that they knew it, but the email traffic that we have already learned about really exposed Fox as having known about it. I think the odds here, you know, it is really a downhill path for Dominion and uphill one for Fox."
The trial start was delayed by one day, which Litman said suggests an effort by both sides to reach a settlement, but he said that still could happen.
"I think once this last-minute momentum for settlement builds, and it did, because they went to the judge and said, 'Give us another day,' they must have said, 'We're getting there,' but then they likely returned yesterday, said they're not there yet, and the judge said, 'I'm not going to hold -- we chose 12 jurors, we have to keep going,'" Litman said. "'You have to go on two tracks to try the case in the day and continuing settlement negotiations at night.' I don't think settlement, by any means, is off the table."
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