The Price of Broadcasting a Stolen-Election Myth
Fox News agreed in April 2023 to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit over false on-air claims that the company's machines rigged the 2020 U.S. election. A Delaware judge had already ruled that none of the disputed statements about Dominion were true.
Fox News agreed on April 18, 2023, to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit, averting a trial in Delaware Superior Court that was set to begin the same day. The agreement, announced after a jury had been sworn in, resolved one of the most closely watched media cases in years, according to NPR.
The sum is believed to be the largest known defamation settlement ever paid by an American media company, and amounted to roughly half of the $1.6 billion Dominion had sought when it filed suit in March 2021, Forbes reported.
A conspiracy that aired on cable news
The case grew out of the period after the November 2020 election, when Fox News hosts and guests repeatedly told viewers that Dominion's voting machines had been used to switch votes away from President Donald Trump as part of a scheme to hand the presidency to Joe Biden. Those assertions were false. Dominion said in its complaint that the broadcasts caused enormous damage to a company whose equipment is used by election officials across the country, according to a summary of the court record.
The claims about rigged machines were part of a broader stolen-election narrative that spread across television and social media in the weeks after the vote, and that continued to circulate long after courts and election officials rejected it.
A judge ruled the claims false
On March 31, 2023, before the trial, Judge Eric M. Davis granted part of Dominion's motion for summary judgment, finding the disputed statements false as a matter of law. “The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that it is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis wrote, as reported by NPR.
The ruling meant the jury would not have to decide whether the statements were false; that had already been established. The remaining question for trial was whether Fox had acted with “actual malice” — the high legal standard that public-figure plaintiffs must meet — when it broadcast the claims, Axios reported. The settlement was reached before jurors reached that question.
Accountability, but no apology
Dominion's chief executive, John Poulos, said afterward that the outcome vindicated the company. “Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees and the customers that we serve,” Poulos told reporters, according to NPR. Justin Nelson, a co-lead counsel for Dominion, said the settlement “represents vindication and accountability,” and that “lies have consequences,” the firm that represented Dominion said.
Fox did not issue an on-air apology. In a statement, the network said, “We acknowledge the Court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” and added that the settlement “reflects FOX's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards,” as quoted by the court-case record. Legal analysts noted at the time that the size of the payment, absent any retraction, underscored how far false claims about the election had traveled before they were checked.