Fox News has suddenly found itself in a legal battle after a New York Appeals Court declined to dismiss the defamation lawsuit filed by Florida-based tech firm Smartmatic. The lawsuit alleges that Fox News, as well as some of its hosts and guests, defamed the company with claims of election fraud.

According to Deadline, the appeals court ruled that Smartmatic's $2.7 billion lawsuit against the right-wing news organization would be going through, as it found that the tech company had adequately presented its claims that several Fox News personalities, including pundits and guests, have defamed the company by claiming it helped in the now-debunked election fraud that supposedly happened during the 2020 presidential elections.

The network tried to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that they were protected by the First Amendment as they talked about a matter of public interest. However, New York's Supreme Court Appellate Division ruled otherwise.

Which Fox News Personalities Were Named in the Smartmatic Defamation Lawsuit?

Along with Fox News, several of the network's personalities have been named in the lawsuit by Smartmatic, and it includes hosts Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, as well as former host Lou Dobbs and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. All have been caught on camera accusing the company of helping propagate election fraud.

The five Appellate Court judges concluded that there were "significant allegations" that Giuliani and another Trump attorney, Sidney Powell, defamed the company. As for Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, they ruled that they "effectively endorsed and participated in the statements with reckless disregard for or serious doubts about" whether the evidence presented by the Trump attorneys was reliable or not.

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Meanwhile, the five judges cited the same reasoning for Pirro as they reinstated the lawsuits against her, which a lower court had previously thrown out.

Smartmatic filed the lawsuit because the company claims that the three Fox News hosts repeatedly allowed Trump's lawyers to falsely portray Smartmatic as a foreign company involved in the conspiracy to flip the election in favor of Joe Biden.

However, the Associated Press reported that the company only operated in Los Angeles County during the presidential elections. It is noted that the county is a heavily blue state, and Joe Biden would have won there easily even if Smartmatic was not involved.

Fox News Still Confident of Victory Against Smartmatic

Despite the lawsuit moving forward, lawyers representing Fox News, as well as its hosts, stated that they are very confident of winning, according to Reuters.

Fox News then released a statement, saying, "There is nothing more newsworthy than covering the president of the United States and his lawyers making allegations of voter fraud." It also added, "Freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported, and not rooted in sound financial analysis."

However, the attorney representing Smartmatic, J. Erik Connolly, stated that they are looking forward to holding Fox News and its hosts accountable,

The lawsuit is a separate case from the similar $1.6 billion lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against the Rupert Murdoch-owned network. That case was filed in Delaware.

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This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

WATCH: Fox News, at apex of 'ecosystem of disinformation,' faces potential legal comeuppance - MSNBC