The last-minute settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems, just hours after a jury was selected on Tuesday in a high-stakes defamation trial, caught many courthouse observers off guard. Both sides had appeared dug in and claimed they would be willing to continue their fight for years.
“Most libel suits against the media settle before trial,” Jane Kirtley, a former executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said, noting that the incentives to settle can be strong on both sides.
Although defamation plaintiffs have persuaded some juries to award significant payouts, the money can often go unpaid for years, if ever, because of a sclerotic appeals process. Defendants like news organizations may prefer to avoid an invasive disclosure of evidence, such as internal correspondence and messages, not all of it flattering.
Rupert Murdoch, who controls Fox News, is no stranger to settling cases, or taking other extreme steps, to avoid extended and potentially embarrassing litigation. He closed his popular tabloid News of the World in 2011, after accusations that its journalists had hacked the phones and voice messages of prominent public figures. At least six agreements had been made by Fox News or its former star anchor Bill O’Reilly to settle harassment allegations against Mr. O’Reilly, before he was fired in 2017.
For weeks, Fox News dealt with rough headlines about revelations in the case, including details about its star anchor Tucker Carlson privately deriding former President Donald J. Trump to his colleagues even as the host praised Mr. Trump on the air.
The network had been girding for a weekslong trial during which top anchors and executives would testify about why the network aired falsehoods about Dominion, an election technology firm that Mr. Trump baselessly accused of rigging the 2020 election against him.
One star witness was set to be Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old head of the Fox Corporation.
“Many litigations settle right before the deposition of the C.E.O.,” George Freeman, the executive director of the Media Law Resource Center, and a former lawyer for The New York Times, wrote in an email.
“He gets cold feet, fears doing badly and being seen as not knowing everything about the business, and also doesn’t want to spend days with lawyers in prep and at the deposition table,” Mr. Freeman said. He added that while Mr. Murdoch had submitted to a deposition, “now we’re on the eve of his testifying in open court.”
Just before Tuesday’s settlement, Martin Garbus, a veteran First Amendment lawyer who has been involved in dozens of libel suits, said that he was taken aback that the case had even gotten so close to trial. “I am astonished it had not settled,” Mr. Garbus wrote in an email.
After the announcement in the courthouse, Mr. Garbus said he could see how the outcome made sense: “With the settlement, everybody wins. Fox goes its way. Dominion gets cash.”
