The defamation lawsuit brought forth by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News has been pushed back from its scheduled Monday start date to Tuesday, with no reason being given by Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis.
However, a report from The Wall Street Journal claims the pause in the case came as the network is looking at a last-ditch settlement with the election machine company.
Neither Fox News nor Dominion would comment on the delay in the trial after Davis said that both the trial and the jury selection would be delayed from its Monday start. The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp., the company founded by Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch.
On Monday morning, a Fox News spokesperson claimed that Dominion has altered its claims of lost profits in the case from “not less than $600,000,000” to now stating it “will not be presenting its claim for lost profits damages to the jury” at all. In its initial filing, Dominion planned to seek the lost profit damages before reversing course late last week.
During a discussion about the trial on CNN This Morning, CNN legal analyst Elie Honig shared it is in Fox’s best interest to settle the case.
“Look at it from Fox’s point of view: they’re looking at the likelihood — if there’s a trial — of having all of their, or many of their most prominent anchors have to take the stand, testify, and get cross-examined,” Honig said. “You can understand why they would be hit by reality at the last moment and say ‘We need to avoid this.’”
Honig added that with Davis already ruling that Fox’s statements about Dominion were false “The only question at trial was going to be ‘Is there actual malice? Did Fox know, or were they reckless about the falsity?'”
