Former trial attorney and MSNBC host Katie Phang, writing about the existential peril facing Fox "News" in Dominion Voting Systems' open-and-shut defamation lawsuit against them:
"Armed with thousands of pages of texts and internal chats and emails by and between Fox hosts, producers and executives, Dominion now seeks to convince a Delaware judge that a jury no longer needs to hear the case because, as a matter of law, there is no work left to be done to decide whether Fox defamed Dominion. On March 21, both sides will appear in court for oral arguments. As Dominion has argued, 'It is the rare case to grant summary judgment of actual malice, but it is also the rare case where direct evidence of actual malice exists, as it does here.'
And some legal experts agree: Dominion doesn’t just have the upper hand, it has the truth on its side. If Dominion is successful, then all that would be left to determine is the amount of damages that Dominion is entitled to receive. That’s where the numbers become astronomical. Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in lost profits and reputational harm. But it’s also seeking punitive damages, which are not capped under New York state law and could also be in the billions of dollars. Punitive damages are intended to punish the wrongdoer and to deter others from repeating that egregious conduct. And a multi-billion-dollar punitive damages verdict would not just punish Fox News. It would send a ringing message to all media companies to keep themselves in check and uphold the truth." (our emphasis)
As we've seen recently, Fox usually doubles down when it's being "attacked," even though there is hard evidence -- and lots of it -- of malice in their defamation of Dominion. However, if Dominion is successful as we hope it will be, punitive damages deserve to be in the billions as well because of the damage to the nation the network has done in undermining democracy and its institutions. Let them double down on that.
