Justice Eric M. Davis of the Superior Court of the State of Delaware presided over this case. The major issue for consideration was whether the defendants could be held liable for the defamatory statements made through Fox News.

The defendants had contended that the statements were not defamatory in the first instance. However, the court stated that the statements had already been considered in Dominion I and refused to re-litigate its holdings in Dominion I as the defendants had failed to show any reason for carrying out such an exercise. The court further observed that it would be inappropriate to litigate Fox News’ underlying liability in an action where it was not a party [p. 11].

With regard to the liability of Fox Corporation, the court found that the complaint pleaded facts permitting a reasonable inference that Fox Corporation participated in the creation and publication of Fox News’ defamatory statements. The particulars of this inference included (i) reliance on Fox News by the Fox Corporation as main profit vehicle, (ii) control over day to day operations by the Executives, (iii) close involvement of the executives with decisions relating to Fox News’ coverage of the 2020 Presidential Elections, (iv) belief of Fox Corporation executives that Fox News would benefit from endorsing former President Trump’s election fraud narrative and would suffer by not doing so, (v) pressure from the Executive of Fox Corporation on Fox News to acquire the audience back and perpetuate false claims about Dominion, (vi) reward was attached with the compliance with the instructions, and punishment was attached with the non-compliance with the instructions. The aforementioned reasons were found sufficient by the court at the pleading stage to make Fox Corporation “responsible in law” [p. 15-16].

Further, based on the level of control and decision-making powers exercised by the executives in issuing the instructions and the rewards and punishment attached to the instructions, the court found that Dominion had adequately pleaded facts supporting a reasonable inference that Fox Corporation proximately caused Dominion’s alleged injury [p. 18].

With regard to the claim of actual malice, the court expounded that actual malice required proof that the individual responsible for the allegedly defamatory statements had knowledge that the statements were false or recklessly disregarded the truth, which in turn  required proving that the defendant “entertained serious doubts as to the truth of the publication or … had a high degree of awareness of its falsity” [p. 19]. The allegations against Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the executives of Fox Corporation supported a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew Dominion had not manipulated the election or at least recklessly disregarded the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to propagate its claims about Dominion. Thus, the court considered that Dominion satisfied the requirements of actual malice by identifying the individuals responsible at Fox Corporation for the broadcast [p. 20].

The claim against Fox Broadcasting failed as Dominion did not specify the person at Fox Broadcasting, responsible for publishing the defamatory statements and also failed to establish that such individuals knew the statements were false or acted in reckless disregard of their falsity or that they failed to investigate in the face of actual subjective doubts as to the accuracy of the story. Thus, Dominion failed to adequately establish that Fox Broadcasting acted with actual malice [p. 22-23].