Dominion can summon Murdoch to testify in Fox News' lawsuit, a judge rules

It has been decided that Dominion Voting Systems can call Fox Corp. executives Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch as witnesses to testify during a jury trial as part of its $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News, a Delaware judge ruled on Wednesday.

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The lawyers for Dominion have written a letter to Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, asking the judge to allow them to call the Murdochs as live witnesses during the trial which is scheduled to begin later this month. 

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During a pretrial hearing on Wednesday, Davis indicated he would be open to compelling Murdoch to testify if Dominion's lawyers issued the media mogul a subpoena for his testimony. 

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As part of its lawsuit, Dominion is asking Fox for $1.6 billion for airing what it has argued to be false information about its software, echoing the claims that were endorsed after the election by former President Donald Trump's associates and allies. The network, according to Dominion, broadcasted what it knew was false information about the company's software. 

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There have been several attempts on Fox's part to get the lawsuit thrown out, all of which have been rejected by Davis last week, and he found that Dominion had proven the first key element of their defamation claim—the fact that Fox's statements about Dominion and the 2020 election were falsified.

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In addition to that, Davis also ruled that a jury was required to decide whether Fox operated with actual malice, or reckless disregard for the truth, another key legal hurdle Dominion has to overcome before it can prove it has been defamed. 

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The Fox channel, which is defending itself in court on the basis of First Amendment rights, has argued against having Murdoch testify at the trial and has accused the voting system company for weeks of "cherry-picking" quotes from its top executives and employees in an attempt to embarrass the network. 

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In depositions given to Dominion's lawyers made public by recent court filings, Murdoch acknowledged that top Fox hosts had gone too far in promoting Trump’s unfounded claims about the election. "As a result of the statements Trump and his associates made at a post-election press conference about Dominion, I fear that they are damaging everyone, which is unacceptable to me."

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Last month, Lachlan Murdoch, the executive chairman at Fox Corporation, dismissed what he called "noise" being generated around the company as a result of the Dominion suit, suggesting the legal challenge Fox is facing over its coverage of the 2020 election is more political than legal. "The way I see it, a lot of what is going on with regards to this case is really not about the law and it isn't really about journalism, and it really is about politics,” Murdoch told investors during a recent conference held by Morgan Stanley.

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"As a matter of fact, I think it is more reflective of a society that is polarized in this manner, and one that we live in today unfortunately."

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This trial is scheduled to begin on the 17th of April.