In a setback for Newsmax, the court decides to bring Smartmatic's lawsuit concerning the 2020 election falsehoods to trial this month.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis dismissed Newsmax's attempt to dismiss the case brought forward by Smartmatic without a trial. Instead, Davis noted that important questions concerning Newsmax's actions in 2020 would be evaluated by a jury, unless a pre-trial settlement was reached.
"Newsmax reported on controversies surrounding the Election and Smartmatic, but there's a disagreement as to whether Newsmax disregarded the truth carelessly," Davis penned down. "The jury needs to decide if Newsmax was serving its routine purpose of informing the public about newsworthy events or if it intentionally misrepresented Smartmatic and defamed the company."
The trial is scheduled to commence on September 30. Defamation suits are frequently settled out of court, even at the eleventh hour.
These rulings were handed out a few weeks after a significant hearing during which Smartmatic argued that Newsmax deliberately propagated the falsehood that its technology was involved in rigging the 2020 election against Donald Trump. Newsmax argued that its actions in 2020 were protected by the First Amendment as it was covering attempts to contest the election results.
In a partial win for Newsmax, Davis allowed the network to keep one of its primary defenses before the jury: that it was merely reporting on Trump's election allegations, but not endorsing them.
"Under these circumstances, a reasonable jury might conclude that Newsmax was reporting on a matter of public interest without endorsing the allegations pertaining to the Election," Davis wrote. "However, a reasonable jury might also conclude that Newsmax provided its viewers with a report of the newsworthy event but that the report was not an impartial report of the newsworthy event."
Both parties came away unsatisfied from Thursday's rulings; nonetheless, the outcome is a substantial blow to Newsmax. If it fails to settle, Newsmax's executives and on-air personalities could be compelled to testify publicly about their interactions with Trump during the 2020 election and their post-election coverage.
Newsmax denies making any defamatory statements. The right-wing network published a "correction" in December 2020 stating that it hadn't discovered any evidence that Smartmatic or Dominion Voting Systems ever "manipulated votes in the 2020 election," despite some guests' claims.
"Newsmax's own personnel were aware they had no evidence indicating Smartmatic's involvement in any type of fraud related to the 2020 election, yet they continued propagating that false narrative," said Smarmatic's lawyer Erik Connolly in a statement. "Newsmax must face accountability under the law in full. We eagerly await the trial and the chance to present our case."
CNN has reached out to Newsmax for comment.
Additionally, Davis ensured that nothing in his ruling suggested that there were any doubts or irregularities regarding the legitimacy of the 2020 election results. Smartmatic machines were not widely employed in US elections; they were only utilized in Los Angeles County during 2020.
"The factual record demonstrates that no one has ever alleged that votes in Los Angeles were changed, manipulated, or otherwise questionable," Davis wrote. "Consequently, any statements about Smartmatic software or voting machines altering the election's results are factually inaccurate."
The business strategy of Newsmax heavily relied on covering election controversies, including the one involving Smartmatic. Despite Newsmax's claim that their media coverage was protected by the First Amendment, they are expected to face questions about their intentional misrepresentation of Smartmatic during trial.
