The witness list for the Fox News $1.6 billion defamation trial now has more big names than a prime-time lineup.
Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch could be forced to testify in person, the judge overseeing the trial said on Wednesday.
Other high-profile Fox employees expected to testify in the case, which was brought by Dominion Voting Systems, include the hosts Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro and Bret Baier.
In a pretrial hearing on Wednesday, the judge, Eric M. Davis of Delaware Superior Court, said that if Dominion issued a subpoena for Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corporation, and other corporate officers, he “would not quash it” and “would compel them to come,” because they were directors of a Delaware corporation.
Lawyers for Dominion have indicated they want Mr. Murdoch to testify, as well as Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s son and the chief executive of Fox. Dominion said it might also call Viet Dinh, Fox’s chief legal officer, and Paul Ryan, a Fox board member, to the stand.
Fox News v. Dominion Voter Systems
Documents from a lawsuit filed by the voting machine maker Dominion against Fox News have shed light on the debate inside the network over false claims related to the 2020 election.
“Both parties have made these witnesses very relevant,” the judge said.
Dominion, which makes electronic voting technology, has accused Fox of knowingly broadcasting falsehoods about the company’s software and linking it to voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Fox has denied the accusations. The trial is scheduled to begin on April 17.
Fox’s lawyers had argued that the elder Mr. Murdoch, 92, and the other executives should not be compelled to testify because they had already provided filmed depositions and their live appearances would “add nothing other than media interest.” They also said that the executives, in their roles at the parent company of Fox News, were not directly involved in any of the broadcasts.
Judge Davis said he understood that it was difficult to schedule appearances by top executives. “Maybe we can work on trying to put the least amount of inconvenience on them as possible,” he said.
In a statement on Wednesday, a Fox Corporation spokesman condemned Dominion’s request to call the Murdochs to the stand: “Dominion clearly wants to continue generating misleading stories from their friends in the media to distract from their weak case. Demanding witnesses who had nothing to do with the challenged broadcasts is just the latest example of their political crusade in search of a financial windfall.”
Dominion did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox had also said that its on-air hosts should not have to testify, because they had given taped depositions. But on Tuesday, Fox’s legal team said in a letter to Judge Davis that the lawyers had agreed to make some of the star hosts available for the trial, including Mr. Carlson and Mr. Hannity, and the news anchors Mr. Baier and Dana Perino, as well as the former host Lou Dobbs. They also said Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News, would be available to appear.
Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox is one of the most closely followed defamation cases in years. As part of the discovery process, a trove of emails and internal messages between Fox hosts and executives were publicly released, showing that many of them privately dismissed claims of election fraud that were going to air on their network. The cache of documents also revealed rising panic inside Fox around the election as executives worried that their viewers, who were angry that the network had first called the state of Arizona for Joseph R. Biden, were fleeing for channels like Newsmax.
Defamation cases against media companies have historically proved hard to win, because of the high legal bar set by the Supreme Court. But some legal experts said Dominion had gathered strong evidence to make the case that Fox knew the statements were false but aired them anyway.
Last week, Judge Davis dealt a major blow to Fox’s defense, saying in a decision that there was enough evidence to conclude that the statements aired on Fox about Dominion were not true. Fox’s lawyers had argued that the network was protected by the First Amendment because it was merely reporting on newsworthy allegations, and that any statements made by its hosts were opinion and protected under the Constitution.
Judge Davis said that the case would proceed to a trial, and that it would be up to a jury to determine whether Fox had knowingly spread the false claims and to decide on any damages.
