Fox Corporation Must Remain Part Of Smartmatic’s Defamation Case, Appellate Court Rules

deadline.com:

A New York appellate court declined to toss Fox Corp. from Smartmatic‘s $2.7 billion defamation case. Smartmatic sued Fox News and Fox Corp.

following the 2020 presidential election, claiming that on-air personalities and guests amplified false claims that it was involved in rigging the ballots.

In a decision issued today, the appellate judges ruled that Smartmatic had met the threshold for moving forward with its claims that Fox Corp.

should also be defendants in the lawsuit, not just the news network. Read the Fox Smartmatic decision. The judges wrote that they “find that the allegations in the first amended complaint relating to Fox Corporation directing the other defendants to undertake a disinformation campaign in the post-election coverage, along with the allegations of Fox Corporation’s active participation in Fox News Network’s daily operations in connection with that coverage, sufficiently allege Fox Corporation’s ‘direct liability’ for the challenged defamatory statements, as well as satisfy the applicable pleading requirements for alleging actual malice.” The appeals court had previously dismissed Fox Corp.