New #TheyLied Libel Lawsuit, Ed Henry v. Fox News

From the Complaint:

9…. [In December 2019, Defendant Suzanne Scott, CEO Fox News] announced that she was promoting Plaintiff to be co-anchor of the popular news show "American Newsroom." Within a few months of his promotion, however, Ms. Scott and Fox News turned against Plaintiff and abruptly fired him, publicly humiliating him in the process.

10. In a public statement, Ms. Scott stated that Plaintiff was guilty of unspecified sexual misconduct, and she did so at a time when she knew, or should have known, that: (1) Plaintiff had been falsely accused of rape or serious sexual misconduct by a former Fox News employee; and (2) those false allegations would soon become public.

11. Regrettably, Ms. Scott sandbagged Plaintiff with her statement, lending credence to the false allegations because she was trying to save her own career and burnish her image as a tough, no nonsense female executive who cleaned up Fox News.

12. In reality, however, Ms. Scott had long been an instrument to cover up the existence of sexual misconduct at Fox News.

You can read the Complaint for more details; I hope to post more on the legal issues as there are more developments.

UPDATE: Fox News' responses are available at Deadline (Bruce Haring).

Comments

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Fox News Network, LLC (“Fox News”) is a limited liability company
with a business addressed located at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10036."

"This Court has original jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 28 U.S. Code § 1332 because the parties are residents of different states"

Is this the thing where you have to plead full diversity of citizenship for an LLC?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Fox News sounds like it has been quite a "family values/traditional values/conservative values" workplace.

I'd suggest 'someone should make a movie' about Fox, but I seem to recall that someone already did.

Maybe Mr. Henry will make the next installment, with Ainsley Earhardt, Sean Hannity, etc.

[santamonica811]

Blame for all this can be laid at the feet of liberals and the mainstream media, because something something conspiracy something something.

[Ben of Houston]

What gets to me is not the initial complaint. It's actually the footnote on page 11. The attorney for the "victim" used an example of him sending a dirty text message as an example of sexual harassment, but omitted that she had responded in the affirmative. After correcting, they continued to include it in their complaints.

They are including knowingly false statements in court submissions. The rest of the story seems sThis, to me, is perjury on the part of the "victim" and her attorney. ubstantially similar.

Presuming that the documents of exit interviews, text messages, and such things that Henry is claiming actually exist, and I see no reason to doubt that, then I see no possible scenario where this is not only libel, but it seems that there is perjury and potentially even fraud up and down at least two sides of this three-way legal battle.

[David Nieporent]

This, to me, is perjury on the part of the “victim”

Nope. Setting aside that only telling part of a story wouldn't be perjury, complaints are (typically) not sworn documents.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Do right-wingers watch Fox as much as they once did, or have they moved on to Newsmax, OAN, etc.? My cable system just added Newsmax, which looks like it might be attractive to a certain element of the clingerverse.