The lawsuit was filed by former “Tucker Carlson Tonight” producer Abby Grossberg, who claims that the network manipulated her into providing false testimony during a high-stakes defamation deposition.
FOX News is purportedly close to settling a lawsuit filed by a former network producer who accused the company of using her as a scapegoat in a massive defamation claim.
According to CNN, the settlement—if approved—will mark the fourth case in a long line of lawsuits recently litigated against FOX News and its owners.
As LegalReader.com has reported before, former “Tucker Carlson Tonight” producer Abby Grossberg filed her complaint after FOX News attorneys allegedly manipulated her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit.
Grossberg claims that, in a September 14 deposition, FOX officials “fraudulently [induced] her to deny facts that she knew to exist.”
In her amended complaint, filed earlier this spring, Grossberg suggested that the network’s attorneys pressured her into providing testimony favorable to the company’s position.
“Based on what I understood and took away from the deposition preparation sessions I had with Fox’s legal team which were coercive and intimidating […] I felt that I had to do everything possible to avoid becoming the ‘star witness’ for Dominion or else I would be seriously jeopardizing my career at Fox News and would be subjected to worse terms and conditions of employment than male employees as I understood it,” Grossberg wrote in the lawsuit.
Grossberg also raised other concerns in her complaint, saying that FOX News fosters a pervasive culture of rampant misogyny and workplace discrimination.
Over the course of the past three months, Grossberg and her attorneys also reportedly produced recordings showing that FOX News knew, or should have known, that former President Donald Trump and his associates were actively lying about voter fraud in the 2020 general election.
FOX News had previously said that Grossberg’s allegations were “baseless,” and that its attorneys were prepared to “vigorously defend FOX against all of her legal claims which have no merit.”
Despite FOX’s claims, CNN suggests that Grossberg’s lawsuit likely changed the course of the Dominion Voting Systems claim—a claim that was recently settled for a record-shattering $787.5 million.
Grossberg, adds CNN, revealed in her own filing that FOX News had not turned over relevant evidence to Dominion’s attorneys, prompting the judge presiding over the defamation case to appoint a special master to investigate whether the network was complying with the court’s orders.
Smartmatic, another voting technology company litigating a defamation claim against FOX News, has also subpoenaed Grossberg to provide testimony.
The details of the proposed settlement between FOX News and Grossberg have yet to be released.
Sources
Fox News Finalizing Settlement With Ex-Producer Abby Grossberg: Report
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