How did courts rule on Dominion and Smartmatic defamation cases related to 2020 election misinformation, and what discovery was produced?
Executive summary
Courts have treated the post‑2020 election claims about Dominion and Smartmatic as legally actionable: Dominion secured a landmark settlement with Fox News after Delaware rulings that found Fox broadcast false, defamatory statements and allowed inferences of actual malice, while Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion suit against Fox has survived repeated challenges and pressed into discovery with judges in New York and on appeal keeping major claims alive [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. How the Dominion litigation was resolved and the key judicial findings
Dominion sued Fox News for defamation and, as the April 2023 settlement shows, the litigation reached a dramatic endpoint when Fox agreed to pay $787.5 million just before trial — a sum characterized as one of the largest media‑litigation payouts in U.S. history — and the network issued a statement acknowledging the court’s rulings that certain claims about Dominion were false while making no formal admission of liability [1] [6]. Before that settlement, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis made dispositive rulings: he concluded that many broadcast statements were false and defamatory and that the record allowed a reasonable inference that senior Fox executives, including the Murdochs, may have acted with actual malice — a crucial standard under New York Times Co. v. Sullivan that requires proof that a defendant knew falsehoods or recklessly disregarded their truth [2] [3] [7].
2. What Dominion’s discovery exposed and why it mattered
Discovery in the Dominion litigation produced internal emails, texts, and other communications that plaintiffs used to show what hosts and executives privately believed about the fraud allegations, and those materials became central to the court’s willingness to allow actual‑malice claims to proceed; reporters and judges repeatedly cited thousands of pages of documents and text messages that undercut on‑air narratives [5] [8] [2]. Those internal materials also informed related litigation — Dominion pursued suits against other outlets and individuals, and Delaware rulings gave Dominion summary judgment on many discrete broadcast statements by some defendants, demonstrating how discovery can convert private communications into proof that public broadcasts were knowingly false or recklessly unverified [9] [10].
3. Where Smartmatic’s case stands and key procedural rulings
Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation suit against Fox and others in February 2021 and has repeatedly cleared procedural hurdles: New York courts have rejected efforts by Fox to toss the case and an appeals court ruled Fox Corporation must face trial, keeping Smartmatic’s central claims alive [4] [5]. Smartmatic has pushed for summary judgment on some issues while Fox seeks to narrow or dispose of claims; both sides have asked judges to decide major legal questions without a jury, reflecting the high stakes and the overlap between the Dominion and Smartmatic theories about Fox’s role in amplifying false vote‑rigging narratives [5] [6].
4. Discovery in the Smartmatic case — scope, revelations, and limits of public reporting
Smartmatic’s lawyers have relied on extensive discovery, disclosing thousands of pages of internal Fox documents, emails and text messages to argue that Fox’s hosts and executives knew or recklessly ignored the falsity of claims linking Smartmatic to stolen votes; reporting notes the same pattern of internal messages and correspondence emerging in the Smartmatic record that proved consequential in Dominion [5] [8]. Public reporting emphasizes the volume and political salience of those materials, but the sources provided do not catalogue every document produced; therefore, while it is established that internal communications were produced and litigated, the complete universe of discrete documents and their contents is not fully detailed in these sources [5] [8].
5. Broader litigation consequences and unsettled questions
Beyond monetary settlements and pending trials, the litigation has prompted other defendants to settle (Newsmax and OAN with Smartmatic or Dominion in some instances) and produced judicial rulings that narrow how media defendants can invoke First Amendment defenses in contexts where internal communications contradict public broadcasts [11] [9]. Important questions remain open in the public record: the full contours of discovery produced to plaintiffs, the extent to which the Murdochs’ actions will be legally characterized as coordinating a “pivot” to cater to viewers, and whether appellate courts will reshape actual‑malice doctrine in these high‑profile media defamation cases [7] [4] [3].