Smartmatic’s dreams of a big settlement payday from Fox News suffered a big blow Tuesday when a New York judge ordered the company to produce real evidence it suffered any actual economic harm from the allegedly disparaging remarks made by on-air Fox News talent after the 2020 elections.
The judge’s order comes just weeks after Fox News filed a motion to end the lawsuit on the grounds that Smartmatic did not have a good reputation worth anything before Fox News talked about it. Under New York law, in order to win a defamation case, a plaintiff must first show that it suffered economic harm from the defendant’s allegedly false statements. The judge’s order seems to be agreeing with Fox’s motion and would require Smartmatic to prove damages before further discovery can continue.
The judge’s order directs Smartmatic to disclose all “documents and communications.
“Plaintiffs are pursuing special damages in the form of lost profits, which require them to identify the actual economic losses that were caused by the alleged defamatory statements,” the order reads. “An integral part of defendants’ defense is that there are reasons for the decline of plaintiffs’ business that are unrelated to defendants’ statements, which reasons include the widely publicized criminal charges against plaintiffs’ executives.”
The president of Smartmatic and two of its other executives have been charged with bribing a top election official in the Philippines. While the outcome of that case has not been finalized, Fox News is claiming that whatever business Smartmatic has lost stems from its own legal troubles, not statements made by Fox News.
FOX NEWS MOTION CLAIMS SMARTMATIC HAD NO GOOD REPUTATION
Smartmatic’s efforts to secure a settlement from Fox News come after Dominion secured a $787.5 million settlement from Fox in 2023. Fox News has argued in court that the Dominion and Smartmatic cases are entirely different, noting that Dominion executives said that to even be compared to Smartmatic was defamation in itself.
Unlike Dominion, Smartmatic is a foreign company that never had significant business in the United States. Its long-shot legal payday now looks all but dead.