(Photo
by
Kevin
Hagen/Getty
Images)
And
just
like
that
…
producer
Abby
Grossberg’s
defamation
suit
against
Fox
News
has
settled
for
$12
million,
according
to
the
New
York
Times,
which
broke
the
news.
The
agreement
was
memorialized
in
a
filing
in
the
Southern
District
of
New
York
noting
Grossberg’s
voluntary
dismissal
of
her
claims,
with
prejudice.
It’s
a
relatively
small
settlement,
particularly
compared
to
the
whopping
$787
million
check
Fox
just
wrote
to
Dominion
Voting
Systems.
And
it’s
not
entirely
clear
why
they
didn’t
just
give
it
to
her
back
in
March
before
she
put
all
Tucker
Carlson’s
ish
on
main
with
her
complaint.
In
the
event,
Grossberg
described
a
classic
hostile
work
environment,
rife
with
sexism
and
bigotry.
For
instance:
[Senior
Executive
Producer
Justin]
Wells
and
[Managing
Editor
Alexander]
McCaskill
often
remarked
that
[a
female
employee],
a
TCT
Booker
who
reported
to
Ms.
Grossberg,
should
use
her
sex
appeal
to
the
TCT
team’s
advantage,
such
as
by
“sleep[ing]
with
Elon
Musk
to
get
[an]
interview”
and
that
she
could
be
his
“next
wife.”
[The
employee]
herself,
likely
feeling
as
if
she
needed
to
“fit
in”
and
add
commentary
matching
her
misogynist
work
environment,
would
respond
that
men
“masturbated”
to
her.
Grossberg
also
alleged
misconduct
by
Fox’s
lawyers,
whom
she
claimed
encouraged
her
to
shade
the
truth
and
lie
by
omission
in
her
deposition
with
Dominion’s
lawyers.
Moreover,
she
claimed
that
they
refused
to
allow
her
to
amend
the
transcript
of
her
testimony
after
the
fact,
in
violation
of
Delaware’s
rules
of
civil
procedure.
It’s
not
clear
whether
that’s
why
Fox
and
its
counsel
absolutely
flipped
their
shit
when
she
threatened
to
sue.
But
before
she
and
her
attorney
Parisis
G.
Filippatos
could
docket
her
claim,
lawyers
for
Fox
News
raced
into
New
York
state
court
seeking a
TRO
to
block
her
divulging
information
about
the
deposition,
claiming
that
it
would
violate
attorney-client
privilege.
And
then,
having
failed
to
head
her
off
in
advance, Fox
filed
an
emergency
motion
to
seal
the
relevant
portions
of
Grossberg’s
federal
complaint
after
the
fact.
US
District
Judge
Jesse
Furman
waved
them
off,
noting
that
“the
cat
is
now
firmly
out
of
the
bag;
given
that
the
Complaint
is
widely
and
publicly
accessible,
the
appropriate
remedy
for
any
improper
disclosure
of
privileged
and
confidential
communications
is
not
sealing.”
Since
Grossberg
filed,
Fox
settled
with
Dominion
and
exiled
Carlson
to
wander
the
frozen
wasteland
of
Twitter.
Her
suit,
and
the
damaging
recordings
she’s
release
to
the
media
since
then,
were
reportedly
a
factor
in
both
of
the
above.
But
that
doesn’t
explain
why
they
would
ever
let
it
get
this
far
when
the
plaintiff
could
be
made
to
go
away
for
what
is
essentially
a
rounding
error
for
the
network.
Carlson
has
now
been
replaced
by
Jesse
Watters,
who
once
laughed
on
air
about
the
time
he
let
the
air
out
of
his
wife’s
tires
so
she’d
have
to
accept
a
ride
from
him.
At
the
time,
he
was
married,
and
she
was
a
colleague
more
than
a
decade
younger
than
him.
Maybe
Fox
should
keep
that
settlement
checkbook
handy.
Grossberg
v.
Fox
Corp [Docket
via
Court
Listener]
Liz
Dye lives
in
Baltimore
where
she
writes
about
law
and
politics
and
appears
on
the Opening
Arguments podcast.