Fox News is pushing back on a lawsuit against the network.
The Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE) recently filed a lawsuit against Fox News in early April, alleging the network violated the stateâs Consumer Protection Act.
âWe are not trying to chill free speech here. But we believe the public was endangered by false and deceptive communications in the stream of commerce,â Attorney Liz Hallock, who represented WASHLITE but has since withdrawn as counsel, said in a statement.
The activist groupâs lawsuit accuses Fox News of spreading false information about the Coronavirus Outbreak and for allegedly previously representing the coronavirus as a hoax. At the time, Fox News called the lawsuit âWrong on the facts, frivolous on the law.â
Now, Fox News is moving to dismiss WASHLITEâs lawsuit, filing the motion on Tuesday.
They are urging âa Washington State trial court firmly and swiftly reject the claims filed by WASHLITE, an activist group seeking to impose a judicial gag order on FOX opinion commentary regarding the Coronavirus Outbreak,â the press release reads.
The motion says WASHLITEâs âclaims here are frivolous because the statements at issue are core political speech on matters of public concern. The First Amendment does not permit censoring this type of speech based on the theory that it is âfalseâ or âoutrageous.â Nor does the law of the State of Washington.â
Additionally, the motion accuses WASHLITE of a âmisguided attemptâ to âuse a lawsuit to stifle Fox News commentary or the viewpoints of its hosts,â according to the press release.
The motion reads:
âFoxâs statements are core political speech on a matter of public concernâhow dangerous the Coronavirus is, and how society should respond to it. Under the First Amendment and state law, the truth or falsity of this type of speech must be resolved through free and open debate in the marketplace of ideasânot through burdensome litigation seeking to impose legal penalties on political statements that a jury might deem âfalseâ or âoutrageous.ââ
The motion includes a 61-page appendix of âinaccuraciesâ in the WASHLITEâs lawsuit, to show transcripts from the network warning about the severity of the coronavirus and pointing out others âdownplayingâ it.
âItâs Constitutional Law 101: the First Amendment protects our right to speak openly and freely on matters of public concern,â Fox NewsMedia General Counsel Lily Fu Claffee said in a statement. âIf WASHLITE doesnât like what we said, it can criticize us, but it canât silence us with a lawsuit.â
