Chance The Lawyer ⚡︎WOW
fox’s motions for summary judgment denied in the dominion case, dominion’s motion granted in part, denied in part
opinion available here: https://chancery.ink/dominionsj
Nick_DI'm digesting the opinion now, but it's groundbreaking that the plaintiff could win anything on summary judgment, as a matter of law, here, against a news organization, on a defamation claim. it is bad news for fox, despite the fact that some of the elements will "still" have to go to trial.
Davis found that Dominion proved defamation per se, particularly on the point of falsity, see his use of ALL CAPS, bold and *italics*, in the passage below.
While everyone on Twitter completely misunderstands the ruling because some moron tweeted in all caps something entirely misleading to fintwit like five minutes after my post, but it got more traction, I am just reminded of how much better life is on Mastodon. 😇
This opinion is such a huge loss for Fox, and such a huge win for Dominion.
It's hard to overstate what a big deal this is legally.
here’s your visual explainer on the Fox v. Dominion decision
elements of the Defamation Per Se—
Teal: Proven as to FNN and FC
Purple: Proven as to FNN only
Yellow: Sent to the jury
also note Fox can’t invoke fair or neutral report privileges
if you open up the 130-page opinion above, you'll note that about 1/2 is a walk through each of the defamatory statements and the judge's comments on whether they are statements of opinion or fact. 🥲
Here's the next important bit — I think ppl are getting tripped up by the one element for trial in the #Fox #Dominion trial: "actual malice" ... it sounds daunting to prove, but it's quite simple. There are two possible ways to prove it and one is super simple.
"They knew it was false."
new highlighting!
yellow or teal, pick a path
1. knowledge of falsity OR
2. reckless disregard (two purple suboptions)
a. entertained serious doubts of truth
b. high degree of awareness of probably falsity
David@chancerydaily Isn't fox a publically traded company? I wonder if we will see a shareholder suit over this. Losing a multiple billion dollar defamation suit seems like it should warrant one.
Michael Cook@docmagnificent @chancerydaily They are publicly traded. I hadn’t even thought of that.
Josh Landau@chancerydaily Chance, semi-related question - do you know if damages will be bifurcated here or if they'll be part of the liability trial? I'm assuming no bifurcation, nothing on the docket suggests it, but figured it's worth asking a local expert!
@PatentJosh It appears that damages will be heard by this jury as part of this trial. I see no evidence of bifurcation, and this conclusion suggests that it will all be heard by the same jury. I can't imagine there would be a "whether there were damages" bifurcated from a "how much were the damages" question (and there's no evidence of bifurcation anyway), so I'm going to say these are the three items this jury will hear starting on April 17th!
Sensible Crone@chancerydaily FNN? FC? Tried looking them up… 🤨
Edwin Young@susiemagoo @chancerydaily Fox News Network and Fox Corporation (parent company) I believe
Jason King@susiemagoo @chancerydaily I think that's 'Fox News Network' and 'Fox Corp' (but just my guess).
Rob Landley@susiemagoo @chancerydaily Faux News Network and Fox Corporation. They have a parent company shell game thing going on to shield assets.
Nathaniel Swigger@chancerydaily Asking as a non-lawyer, what’s left for Dominion to prove at trial?
Connor MoranThis is a great explainer, with my only criticism being that it required me to try to remember what color "teal" is
Marc Jacobs@ConnorMoran @chancerydaily Haha. Living near San Jose, it’s the color of Sharks Hockey Jersey.
OldHound@chancerydaily So the only real issue at trial will be meeting the standard for malice?
Based on the text messages and internal correspondence that's been shown so far, I think Fox is in for a very rough ride.
toxtethogrady@chancerydaily I had to search. Apparently, according to NPR, the judge wants Murdoch to testify in court at the trial. More still to come...
Michael S@chancerydaily Is there any amount of better lawyering that could have saved Fox here, or are the facts just *that* bad for them?
@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNote@mstevens86 @chancerydaily By their own words they knew the election was fair. There’s no way to defend against that. They deliberately spread information they knew to be false.
Tom Bellin 
@mstevens86 @chancerydaily discovery had a bunch of emails from all levels of FNC saying basically, "we have to lie about dominion or we'll lose viewers."
Grant R. Gulovsen@chancerydaily Its been a good week for the law. 😎
Mark vW@chancerydaily Where did you find the decision?
@markvonwahlde https://chancery.ink/dominionsj will take you to the court's website link -- idk the court's media people sent me the link because I'm special like that
@chancerydaily I listened to Tucker speak to my company’s PAC during the 2016 election, during which he railed against Trump. Nothing in his texts surprised me as he has the backbone of a sea sponge.
El Jefe "
" 
@chancerydaily it changed the ballgame. 🥂
@chancerydaily Is there a reason you don’t use hashtags?
@Pineywoozle I usually use them in the top post of a thread. Do you think that's insufficient? I'm open to feedback! Also, I am probably not very good at it, so would love constructive criticism or suggestions.
@chancerydaily Yeah, this place runs on hashtags. How else can I get people to look at my #ChickensInSweaterVests 😜 But seriously tag each post because posts are seen in real time except when boosted. Lots of people follow specific hashtags like. #USPol or #Indictment so no mater when you post they can find the content when they happen to be on. Words aren’t searchable #s are
@chancerydaily If you only tag the top thread you’re one of hundreds and way harder to find.
g-clef@chancerydaily Am I reading it right that Dominion won everything except the "actual malice" part of their request? So the only thing a jury would have to decide is whether Fox acted with malice?
Chris AD@gclef @chancerydaily I don't think the part about Dominion being a 'public figure' for the purposes of defamation has been settled, so that bit needs to be decided before they even get to whether 'actual malice' comes into play (IANAL)
@chancerydaily Actual malice still has to be proven, but a jury will decide that...
@chancerydaily It would be lovely if some of the others got the same treatment. Fox certainly wasn’t the only one telling lies about the election and Dominion.
Nezlor@chancerydaily what is the correct legal term for this? An “L”?
@chancerydaily One of the things that's been remarked upon is that *not* ruling on falsity is basically saying that who is legally POTUS is an open question. I don't see how any court could have possibly entertained the possibility of even legitimizing that stance in the slightest.
Steven Molnar@chancerydaily "News organization", you say? I don't see anything about a news organization, just Dominion and Fox.
LizardIANAL, but I’ve read enough stuff from lawyers to know how rare this is.
JBinOR@chancerydaily … a pattern of lies and deceit. Throughout #covid Fox “News” lied and purposely misinformed as people died.