Dominion Voting System v Fox News

[Barrister]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/dominion-voting-fox-news-trial-1.6813876

Trial is set to start today after having been delayed by 24 hours yesterday.

There have been highly embarrassing releases of discovery coming out of this case, like how Tucker Carlson hates Donald Trump in private, or basically how Fox knew that somew of the stories they were putting out there were crap, but that's what their audience wanted.

What I don't get is this though - at the end of the day it's a defamation case - so it's about damage to reputation.  Dominion Voting Systems is not a large company.  It's privatey held so impossible to get an exact value on it, but I see it has 100-200 employees, one estimate has its annual revenue (not profit - revenue) at $17.5 million.  And while I have no problem believing that Dominion's reputation was damaged in 2020, by the revelations from this case alone you have to think a lot of that damage has been ameliorated.

So while Dominion (to my eyes) should almost certainly be compensated, the $1.6 billion ask seems wildly inappropriate.  This does appear like they're trying to pull a Gawker / Hulk Hogan / Peter Thiel move where the intent is to just try and cause as much damage to Fox as possible.

And finally - the trial judge has already made rulings that can and likely will be appealed.  What happens if this case makes it to a 6-3 divided Supreme Court?

[The Brain]

Does increased threat level against owners and employees mean anything in these things?

[Gups]

Punitive damages?

[Barrister]

Punitive damages?

Yeah.  And I understand that the US is much more willing to impose punitive damages than Canada is.

But still - I think of punitive damages as being like 3x.  The damages being sought here seem like orders of magnitude more than the actual financial loss experienced by Dominion.

[grumbler]

I think that Dominion went into this asking for the maximum that could be even thinly justified, both to pressure Fox for a settlement, and to give the jury some leeway to reduce the amount of the judgement if that would be necessary to get some jurors to find for Dominion.  None of the $1.6B is for punitive damages; Dominion simply asked for punitive damages in the amount that the jury decided on (if I am reading the coverage correctly).

[crazy canuck]

I think that Dominion went into this asking for the maximum that could be even thinly justified, both to pressure Fox for a settlement, and to give the jury some leeway to reduce the amount of the judgement if that would be necessary to get some jurors to find for Dominion.  None of the $1.6B is for punitive damages; Dominion simply asked for punitive damages in the amount that the jury decided on (if I am reading the coverage correctly).

Yeah, the heads of damage making the 1.6B are related to loss of profits, loss of enterprise value and other sundry expenses, such as the security they had to hire to keep their operations safe from the Maga maniacs.  The punitive damages in this case could be considerable if it turns out the Fox talking heads knew the claims they were making on air were false.  But, as you say, that is not part of the 1.6 figure.

[crazy canuck]

Punitive damages?

Yeah.  And I understand that the US is much more willing to impose punitive damages than Canada is.

But still - I think of punitive damages as being like 3x.  The damages being sought here seem like orders of magnitude more than the actual financial loss experienced by Dominion.

Actual loss of profits is a very small part of the claim, the losses being claimed are into the future.  Not simply what has been suffered to date.

[Razgovory]

Fox News doesn't even need to lose the lawsuit now, the revelations have been damaging enough.

[crazy canuck]

Fox News doesn't even need to lose the lawsuit now, the revelations have been damaging enough.

I don't know about that.  I heard a report today saying their viewership has not decreased.

[Valmy]

Fox News doesn't even need to lose the lawsuit now, the revelations have been damaging enough.

I don't know about that.  I heard a report today saying their viewership has not decreased.

Yeah their 70+ age demographic don't care about that kind of thing.

In any case kind of surprised Fox wouldn't know just making up fake attacks on people and institutions will get them sued and for potentially a lot. Seems like the kind of liability knowledge that a big corporate news agency would know about.

[crazy canuck]

And it has settled.  787.5 million 

[Habbaku]

Fox seems to have settled for $787.5 million. 

[Valmy]

A very expensive fake story Fox. I hope it was worth it.

[HVC]

Net income for fox news in 2022 was $1.507B. So this hurts but is hardly crippling.

[The Minsky Moment]

The crazy claims against Dominion basically killed their ability to get contracts in the US  So they can claim as damages all lost future profits that they reasonably could have earned. 

The Supreme Court is (was) not likely to be much of a factor because defamation is a state law issue.  The Court would only get involved to the extent the trial judge made a ruling that was fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment.

That said, it's clear that Dominion's strongest leverage point was the in terrorem effect of a threatened public trial.