Dominion Voting Systems did more on Tuesday than settle its lawsuit against Fox News for $787.5 million: It also set the tone for the many related defamation cases it has filed.
Legal experts say the settlement with Fox News, one of the largest defamation payouts in American history, could embolden Dominion as it continues to defend its reputation, which it says was savaged by conspiracy theories about vote fraud during the 2020 election. The company has several cases pending against public figures including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow executive, and news outlets such as Newsmax.
The targets of Dominion’s remaining lawsuits, few of which have deep pockets and legal firepower at Fox’s level, are likely to take a cue from Dominion and Fox’s face-off, legal experts said...
“The tort of defamation is not about saving democracy from liars,” said Enrique Armijo, a professor and First Amendment expert at Elon University School of Law. “It’s about saving the reputation of the people who have been lied about and making those liars compensate them for the harms to their reputations.”
Read the full article in The New York Times.