Posted on 04/08/2020 3:14:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A little-known Washington nonprofit has filed a lawsuit against Fox News in King County Superior Court, claiming the news station, its parent companies and owners violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act and acted in bad faith by disseminating false information about the novel coronavirus through its television news broadcasts and minimized the danger posed by the virus as COVID-19 began to explode into a pandemic.
The suit, filed on behalf of the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE), alleges Fox News engaged in unfair or deceptive acts by representing the coronavirus as a hoax in broadcasts that aired in February and March. Those broadcasts caused viewers to fail to adequately protect themselves or mitigate the virus’ spread, and therefore contributed to the public-health crisis and preventable mass death, the lawsuit says.
WASHLITE was incorporated in September 2017 by an Onalaska, Lewis County, man, according to the Secretary of State’s website, but the nonprofit does not appear to have any other web presence.
Yakima attorney Liz Hallock, who is running for governor as a Green Party candidate, is representing WASHLITE in the lawsuit against Fox News.
“We 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,” Hallock said in phone interview Friday. “There are a lot of people who listen to Fox News, and they’re not taking the recommendations of public-health officials seriously. This is not about money; it’s about making sure the public gets the message this is not a hoax.”
According to Hallock, several members of WASHLITE live in King County and one of them has COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
Contingency-fee agreement?
“hometowned” ??
What’s that?
That is what I was thinking. I smell sanctions.
Will they sue the World Health Organization too?
https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217099203983351813?s=19
https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?s=19
“Time for a class action against CNN. How many businesses are going bankrupt because of their non stop hysteria machine.”
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Legal action is long overdue. They operate on OUR airwaves per an FCC license which stipulates they act in the best interest of the country. It also stipulates that they not broadcast false information. ( I am paraphrasing).
Its no surprise to see Fox attacked when its CNN that is acting in Bad Faith on a daily basis.
Hope Washington is a loser pays state for frivolous cases such as these
What if someone got the pleadings and changed the parties to NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, etc and filed them?
The judge favors the local lawyer/party at the expense of the out-of-towners. Close calls to to the locals. Local guy misses a deadline, judge allows a late filing, etc.
Or if the judge is really good, the out of towners win the pretrial motion skirmishes, and then get cleaned out at the end.
The issue can be mitigated by hiring a respected local lawyer to sit at the table and make small talk in the in-chambers discussions. But at the end of the day, hurting the unpopular out of state party doesn't hurt when it comes to re-election/re-appointment/retention (depending on the state).
That would be AT&T.
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