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A The Federal Court of Appeal has resumed Friday a lawsuit against Fox News by the parents of Seth Rich, DNC staff member, that the family claims to have intentionally inflicted emotional distress by spreading conspiracy theories. about their son.
A judge of a Southern District Court of New York State dismissed the Rich family's complaint in August 2018, but the Rich's lawyers appealed the lawsuit to the Court of Appeal. call of the second circuit. The judges quashed the decision of the lower court within 28 pages. ruling today. The case will now be allowed to advance towards discovery.
Fox News employees and others allegedly "orchestrated a plan to turn the Riches into involuntary collaborators in their ploy," said the court's decision Thursday, and "apparently, Fox News knew about the scheme from the beginning. "
"They did this, knowingly, in full knowledge of the harm it would cause to Seth's parents," wrote US District Judge Guido Calabresi, canceling the dismissal and returning the case. before the lower court.
"We have no difficulty in concluding that, considering their allegations to be true, the Riches plausibly alleged what constituted an emotional campaign of torture," wrote Calabresi.
"The court decision today authorizes Mr. and Mrs. Rich to conduct a preliminary interrogation to determine if there is a factual basis to their complaint against FOX News," said a Fox spokesman. News at Washington Examiner. "And while we express our deepest condolences to the Rich family, we believe his discovery will demonstrate that FOX News has not adopted a course of action that would support Rich claims. We will evaluate our next legal steps. "
Seth Rich was murdered the morning of July 10, 2016, in an alleged robbery according to the authorities. The conspiracy theorists seized on Rich's murder and spread the baseless rumor that he was behind stolen emails from the DNC, obtained by Wikileaks, and that his death was a real shot for political reasons. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks who is now being extradited to the United States for a host of accusations, has helped promote the conspiracy theory. The government however concluded that the Russian military intelligence had stolen the emails from the DNC, and there was no credible evidence showing Rich's involvement.
Rich's parents, Joel and Mary, filed a lawsuit against Fox News in the Southern District of New York in March 2018, alleging that Fox News employees had dragged them into a fraudulent scheme to promote conspiracy theory. , and that Fox News let him do it. Fox News collaborator Malia Zimmerman and Fox News contributor Ed Butowsky "incited" Rich's parents to hire an investigator, Rod Wheeler, to help "solve" the murder of their son. the leaking DNC and as "criminal and traitor".
"Joel and Mary Rich, the bereaved parents of a murdered child, seek justice for collateral damage in a political war in which they are innocent," Rich's lawyers told the court last year. "They seek to help prevent similar malicious and reckless behavior in order to protect future innocent victims from becoming a similar political fodder."
Fox News responded in May 2018 with a motion to dismiss the affair stating that the Rich family's claims "have no precedent in the common law and are inconsistent with the First Amendment's right of the press to report on matters of legitimate public interest ".
"[Joel and Mary Rich] claim that the source of their emotional distress is the publication of false and defamatory news about their son, "Fox News lawyers told the court. "But New York law and other laws provide that surviving family members have no cause of action for the defamation of a deceased family member, regardless of their emotional distress."
Judge George Daniels of the Southern District of New York sided with Fox News in August 2018 and filed the case.
"It is understandable that the plaintiffs may feel that their grief and personal loss have been exploited and that the tragic death of their son has been exploited for political ends," Daniels ruled. "However, a general allegation that the defendants had a" collaboration agreement against "the plaintiffs can not serve as a basis for a [intentional infliction of emotional distress] claim."
The federal court of appeal was not in agreement.
Calabresi noted that Fox News had published an article in 2017 titled DNC staff member killed had contact with WikiLeaks, sources said who promoted unfounded assertions that Seth Rich was involved in the theft of emails from the DNC. Fox News later retracted the coin.
"Fox News guests have however continued to refer to the article removed for months," Calebresi said today. "And to this day, Fox News is putting online at least two videos repeating, almost verbatim, the content of Zimmerman's story."
Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity have strongly defended the conspiracy theory. A seven-minute segment between Wheeler and Hannity from May 2017 is still available on the Fox News website. The interview took place after the Rich family had repeatedly disavowed the conspiracy theory and Wheeler.
"We are a family engaged in the facts and not in false evidence that surfaced every few months to fill the void and prevent law enforcement and the general public from recovering the murderers of Seth," he said. the Rich family.
Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was shown open to the conspiracy theory in August.
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