MANHATTAN (CN) — A judge in New York state supreme court ruled Tuesday that voting technology company Smartmatic cannot halt Fox News’ counterclaims accusing the voting machine company of suing the cable news giant for $2.7 billion to suppress Fox News’ free speech.
Florida-based Smartmatic brought its lengthy civil complaint in New York state court in February 2021, accusing Fox News stoking far-right conspiracy theories about the voting technology company after the 2020 presidential election.
During a protracted three-year legal battle since, attorneys for Fox News pushed back with counterclaims against the company, arguing that Smartmatic’s defamation claims should not prevail under New York’s anti-SLAPP, short for strategic lawsuit against public participation, which is designed to inhibit lawsuits intended to chill speech.
Fox’s lawyers argue that Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation damages claim is so exaggerated that it could only be intended to stymie Fox News’ free speech.
In a decision made public Wednesday, New York Supreme Justice David Cohen denied Smartmatic’s motion to toss out Fox News’ counterclaims.
The judge found that “not all elements of plaintiffs’ defamation claims have been already determined against defendants, and thus, they do not show that defendants are collaterally estopped from contesting that plaintiffs’ claims have a substantial basis in fact.”
Cohen noted that the issue of whether or not Smartmatic’s “alleged damages are so extenuated from their actual lost profits” that they were intend to stifle protected speech,“ has not yet been adjudicated in any court.”
Last spring, Fox paid Dominion Voting nearly $800 million to avert a trial in the voting machine company’s lawsuit over false claims in coverage of the 2020 election. Smartmatic is seeking more than three times that amount in damages.
In a court filing, Smartmatic’s lawyers characterized Fox News’ arguments on the motion as: “long on rhetoric but short on reasons why the court should not eliminate the distraction of their SLAPP counterclaim.”
“The Fox Defendants participated in publishing one of the most profound, destructive lies imaginable,” Smartmatic argued in support of dismissing Fox News’ counterclaims. “The SLAPP statute was not written to protect these defendants for this type of misconduct.”
Representatives for both parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon.
In addition to Fox News' parent company Fox Corporation, Smartmatic’s civil complaint named onetime New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell as co-defendants for creating the false narrative about the election and spreading the disinformation through frivolous lawsuits.
Even though Fox News and its commentators “knew the election was not rigged or fixed,” according to Smartmatic’s complaint, they “saw an opportunity to capitalize on President Trump’s popularity by inventing a story.”
Smartmatic maintains is no evidence of any cyber-security problems in connection with the election in Los Angeles County, the only county where Smartmatic’s election machines and software were used during the 2020 U.S. election.
“Even with a full retraction from all Defendants, Smartmatic will spend years rebuilding its reputation and battling the perception that it was involved in election fraud,” the company’s complaint stated. “The harm suffered by Smartmatic, coupled with the malicious nature of the disinformation spread by the Defendants, justifies significant punitive damage.”
Despite 91 felony counts across four state and federal jurisdictions last year — in Georgia, Florida, New York and the District of Columbia — Trump currently stands as the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, winning the New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary Tuesday night.
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