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A judge overseeing Dominion Voting System’s $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News on Wednesday imposed a sanction against the network after it made «misrepresentations» to the court and potentially withheld evidence.
Dominion’s lawsuit accuses Fox News of knowingly pushing false conspiracy theories that the voting machine company had somehow rigged the 2020 presidential election in Joe Biden’s favor, so the network could retain viewers.
The judge said during a pretrial hearing on Wednesday that Fox News would have to pay for any last-minute additional depositions that Dominion would need to do before the case is set to head to trial on Monday. Dominion did not immediately make clear if any such depositions were needed.MORE: Judge, Fox attorney clash over TV hosts’ testimony in Dominion defamation case
«If there is a deposition that needs to be done, it will be done,» Judge Eric Davis said. «Fox will do everything it needs to make the person available, and it will be at the cost of Fox.»
But potentially more significantly, the judge said he would «most likely» appoint a special master to «do an investigation» into whether representations by Fox made to the court as part of the case were «untrue or negligent» — including a certification it had made in December that it had essentially completed its discovery process in accordance with the case.
The special master was already involved in the case to oversee the discovery process, but the new investigation will determine «what sanctions could be implemented» against Fox, the judge said — a significant development on the eve of trial.
«This is very serious,» Judge Davis said of the issue.
The unexpected move came in response to concerns raised by Dominion that Fox News was still turning over evidence in the case, and that in some instances Dominion was still learning of evidence from the public domain. This included, for example, an internal recording they said they only recently obtained appearing to show former President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani privately expressing doubts over the claims regarding Dominion’s voting software.
