It’s hard to keep up with the cascade of libel suits now filling the courts. Usually the idea in a media law course is to focus on the libel suits that are instructive or set a precedent of some kind. However, it’s also important to note current cases so that the context of the law is appreciated.
The Dominion – Fox cases – These are cases that stemmed from controversy over the outcome of the 2020 election and the Fox News network allegations about voting machines.
Dominion v Fox, 2023 — Although the Dominion v Fox case was settled on April 19, 2023, a few days before the trial began, another voting machine company libel suit continues. against Fox News, One America News Network and three Trump advisors.. The Dominion settlement came after Fox underestimated the strength of the case against them, according to a May 27, 2023 NY Times article.
The Smartmatic voting machine company is continuing its libel case against Fox over lies about election fraud in 2020. The allegation is that Fox and OANN aired a pattern of defamatory claims from Trump supporters about illegal manipulation of vote counts that threw the 2020 election to Joe Biden. Depositions have shown that Fox personalities did not believe the claims at the time they were aired. One Fox personality, Tucker Carlson, was forced to resign from Fox News due (in part) to the disgrace he brought onto the network. Another personality, Sean Hannity, claimed “journalistic privilege” to protect his sources. News Corp. (the Fox parent) also relied on previous cases defining “neutral reporting.”
Other interesting recent cases
Rebekah Vardy v Coleen Roony (UK case) 2022 – This is the “Wagatha Christie” case of UK tabloid fame, so-named because the two are “WAGs” (wives and girlfriends ) of famous UK football players and because it took investigation to get to the bottom of the cases (Therefore WAG combined with Agatha Christie). According to Wikipedia, the dispute began in 2019, when Rooney accused Vardy of leaking posts from her private Instagram account to the British newspaper The Sun. These supposedly private posts involved things like flooded basements and trips to Mexico. Roony was able to prove that Vardy had leaked the posts and was awarded about 1.5 million British pounds. Helen Lewis, a writer for The Atlantic, called it “the most ill-advised defamation case” since Oscar Wilde‘s dispute with the Marquess of Queensberry.
John Oliver lampoons coal boss Bob Murray’s libel suits
Johnny Depp v Amber Heard 2022 – A complicated “domestic” dispute in which two movie stars exposed their intimate lives to a world hungry for scandal. The case played out against a background of allegations and counter-allegations of physical and mental abuse. Depp won, so to speak, and Heard will end up paying Depp $1 million to settle the case. But really, both lost in the court of public opinion.
Robert E. Murray v John Oliver and HBO 2017 This is another one of those totally ill-advised libel suits. Coal baron Bob Murray sued John Oliver, asking the court for an injunction to stop a program in which Oliver was calling him a “geriatric Dr. Evil” who was “on the same side as black lung.” The courts tossed the suit (granted a pre-trial motion to dismiss by Oliver and HBO attorneys), as they did with over a dozen other defamation lawsuits brought by Murray against journalists and other critics of his operations, his company, and the coal industry.
Also see special section: Trump libel cases