I'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