Fox News to Pay $787.5M, SCOTUS Hears Religious Rights Case, Shooter Charged in Ralph Yarl Shooting, and More.
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You are listening to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. This is your host Jordan, and I give you the legal analysis you've been waiting for. Here's the deal. I don't care about your political views, but I do ask that you listen to the facts, have an open mind and think for yourselves. Deal? Oh, and one last thing. I'm not actually your lawyer.

Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. I have you guys all confused with the days here. I know it's not Friday, but you guys are always itching for my content anyway, so I figured why not give it to you a little bit early. We are going to be talking about four different stories today. As always, unbiased, just the facts, you know the drill. The first story we're going to cover is the settlement in the Fox News Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit.

The second story we're going to cover is a Supreme Court case that was just heard on Tuesday. And actually, the third story is also a case in front of the Supreme Court where oral arguments were just heard on Tuesday. So two interesting cases that I want to go over there. And then the last is in regard to that shooting we heard about where that

teenage boy was shot on the front doorstep of an old man's home and that man was just charged. And I thought that that story kind of

involves a pretty interesting discussion about stand your ground laws. So I wanted to include that in here as well. One more thing before we get into the stories, please just leave me a review on whichever platform you listen. I know I ask you guys this on a weekly basis, but it really does mean a lot to me. So if you guys could just do that real quick, it only takes a few seconds. That would mean a lot. The first story is the Fox News Dominion voting systems lawsuit.

So we know that this was settled for $787.5 million, and it was settled pretty much in the 11th hour on Tuesday. The jury had already been selected. They were preparing for opening statements, and this happened very, very last minute. The trial had actually already been delayed by a day, so on Monday, the judge announced that jury selection would resume on Tuesday.

come Tuesday, jury selection resumed, and then by Tuesday evening, the settlement was announced. And by settling, they avoided the trial. The trial was expected to last about six weeks. So let's recap this lawsuit a little bit, and then we'll talk about what specifically Dominion was alleging. We'll talk a little bit about the terms of the settlement, and then we'll talk about their statements that were issued after the settlement.

So this lawsuit was filed in 2021. Dominion was seeking $1.6 billion in damages. And what they were alleging was that Fox News had aired claims that the Dominion voting system was manipulating the 2020 election in favor of President Biden. And what Dominion said is that these on-air claims caused their company, Dominion Voting Systems, enormous and irreparable economic harm.

So we're going to go over just a little summary of the complaint in a second. This complaint is nearly 140 pages, so I'm definitely not reading the entire thing to you, but I will give you a short summary. But what this settlement tells us is that two things are clear. One is that Fox really didn't want to take this to trial. That's clear.

Two, Dominion, I don't think thought that they could get $1.6 billion from the jury if this did go to trial, because if they did think that, they would have, I mean, yes, maybe they wanted to save themselves, you know, the attorney's fees or, you know, costs associated with the trial, but they've already spent so much money leading up to the trial that the expense related to the trial probably wouldn't have been that much more than they've already spent. So, yeah,

I think it's, you know, to me, like I said, those two things are clear. Fox didn't really want to go to trial. Dominion didn't think that they that they would get the one point six billion dollars, you know, that they were asking. Maybe they maybe they thought they'd get a billion. I don't know. But I don't think that I think if they thought that they had a good chance of getting every penny that they were asking for, they would just take this to trial.

If this went to trial, Dominion would have had the burden of proving that Fox either knowingly spread false information or Fox recklessly disregarded the truth. And those are two kind of important phrases because they tie into what the standard is here. In defamation cases that involve public figures, the standard is higher. The standard is what we call actual malice.

And because this case involves public figures, that's what we have here. So Dominion would have had to prove, like I said, that Fox either knowingly spread false information or they recklessly disregarded the truth. And Dominion would have had that burden of proving that.

Now, also keep in mind that this lawsuit was for defamation per se. Defamation per se is a level up from defamation, and it only applies to certain types of statements. So defamation is a false statement that injures someone or something's reputation.

Defamation per se applies when certain statements are so damaging that they're deemed defamatory on their face. So let me give you four general categories of per se statements, and you'll see where these statements fall into. But the four general categories of what we call per se defamation include statements indicating the commission of a crime of moral turpitude,

Statements about someone having an infectious disease. That's interesting. It's a bit outdated, but it's interesting nonetheless. Statement about someone engaged in sexual activities or a statement that hurts someone in his or her business. Now, obviously this falls here. Dominion is alleging that their whole reputation as a business was very, very irreparably affected by the statements that Fox News made. Now, why is per se important?

In per se cases, the damages alleged by the party bringing the defamation claim are

are typically presumed. So if it's found that, you know, that Fox News either knowingly made these false statements or recklessly disregarded the truth, Dominion wouldn't have to prove their damage. They wouldn't have to prove the $1.6 billion. They could just say, we, you know, we want $1.6 billion in damages. And if they were able to prove their case, that amount of damages would have been presumed.

So that was an advantage for Dominion. Let's talk a little bit about the basis of the lawsuit. I'm just going to read you the beginning of the complaint because like I said, it's 140 pages, but the beginning, the first few paragraphs really illustrate what the basis of the complaint was. So this is what it says.

Fox, one of the most powerful media companies in the United States, gave life to a manufactured storyline about election fraud that cast a then little known voting machine company called Dominion as the villain. After the November 3rd, 2020 presidential election, viewers began fleeing Fox in favor of media outlets endorsing the lie that massive fraud caused President Trump to lose the election. They saw Fox as insufficiently supportive of President Trump, including

because Fox was the first network to declare that President Trump lost Arizona. So Fox set out to lure viewers back, including President Trump himself, by intentionally and falsely blaming Dominion for President Trump's loss by rigging the election.

Fox endorsed, repeated, and broadcast a series of verifiably false yet devastating lies about Dominion. These outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions included Fox falsely claiming that 1. Dominion committed election fraud by rigging the 2020 presidential election. 2. Dominion's software and algorithms manipulated vote counts in the 2020 presidential election. 3.

Three, Dominion is owned by a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections for dictator Hugo Chavez. And four, Dominion paid kickbacks to government officials who used its machines in the 2020 presidential election.

Fox recklessly disregarded the truth. Indeed, Fox knew these statements about Dominion were lies. Specifically, Fox knew the vote tallies from Dominion machines could easily be confirmed by independent audits and hand recounts of paper ballots, as has been done repeatedly since the election. Fox took a small flame and turned it into a forest fire. As the dominant media company among those viewers dissatisfied with the election results, Fox gave these fictions a prominence they otherwise would have never achieved.

With Fox's global platform, an audience of hundreds of millions, and the inevitable and extensive republication and dissemination of the falsehoods throughout social media, these lies deeply damaged Dominion's once thriving business. So that's the basis of the lawsuit.

And Fox's argument was that the claims by former President Trump and his lawyers about the election were inherently newsworthy, meaning like the election fraud. These claims were inherently newsworthy and protected by the First Amendment.

But just recently in March, the judge ruled that Fox's coverage of the election was false and defamatory and therefore not protected by the First Amendment. And therefore, they couldn't use that argument at trial. So my thought is that once they knew that they couldn't use what I'm guessing was their strongest argument, they realized they better settle this. So that's what they did.

Following the settlement, Fox issued this statement. They said, quote,

Dominion's statement was made by the CEO, and what he said in part was, "...Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees, and our customers. Nothing can ever make up for that. Throughout this process, we have sought accountability and believe the evidence brought to light through this case underscores the consequences of spreading and endorsing lies. Truthful reporting in the media is essential to our democracy."

So as part of this settlement, Fox actually won't have to acknowledge on air that it told any falsehoods. That was part of their agreement.

And the judge, interestingly, he complimented the lawyers. And before he stepped off the bench, he said that he's been on the bench since 2010. And this was the best lawyering that he had ever seen. And he said, I would be proud to be your judge in the future. Now, this case might be settled, but Fox still has another defamation suit to deal with. Their other defamation suit is the plaintiff is Smartmatic.

very, very similar. They are seeking almost double the amount that Dominion was seeking. So they're seeking $2.7 billion. And they're alleging, like I said, very similarly, that Fox News knowingly lied about Smartmatic's technology and how it was used in order to boost ratings and keep Trump supporters from transitioning to other right-wing networks like Newsmax and One America News.

Fox tried to get this lawsuit dismissed, but in February, an appellate court allowed it to proceed.

So as of February, Fox News lawyers said that they expected to win that lawsuit, but maybe now their opinion has changed now that they've settled this one. So with that said, let's move on to the next story. The next story is a case that the Supreme Court heard on Tuesday called Groff vs. DeJoy. And I thought this case was worth talking about because the Supreme Court is going to decide how an employer is to accommodate the religious practices of employees.

So this case started with a former mail carrier for the United States Post Office. His name was Gerald Groff. He's an evangelical Christian, and he was hired by the post office in 2012. When he was hired, postal workers didn't work on Sundays.

Then in 2013, the post office signed a contract with Amazon and now the post office was going to start delivering Amazon packages on Sundays. So this was a problem for Groff because he didn't work on Sundays. His religion prohibited him from working.

But this actually didn't cause an issue right away. So from 2013 to 2016, everything was fine. And then in 2016, the Postmaster required Groff to work on Sundays during peak season. So November through January, the holidays, obviously that's when we all know the post office is closed.

disaster. At this point, when his postmaster was requiring him to work on Sundays, he actually opted to transfer to a smaller station that didn't work on Sundays because he was very adamant about the fact that he wouldn't work on Sundays. He specifically got this job because they didn't work on Sundays. So he said, okay, I'm going to go to a smaller station that won't require me to work on Sundays to solve this problem. But a few months later, that facility also began delivering Amazon packages on Sunday.

So when that happened, he offered to work extra shifts, you know, Monday through Saturday instead of working Sunday. But the postmaster would continue to schedule him on Sundays. And he kept saying, like, I'm not working on Sundays. Important.

Importantly, his postmaster did try to get people to cover for Groff when he was scheduled on Sundays, but it didn't always work. There wasn't always someone to help him out and take his Sunday shift. So when he was scheduled and there was no one to cover and Groff wouldn't show up, he was disciplined for his failure to show up to work. So eventually this led to him resigning in 2019.

So he brought this case. It was in front of the district court. The district court ruled in favor of the post office. It went up to the appellate court. They also ruled in favor of the post office. And now it's in front of the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court, like I said, is going to decide how employers must accommodate their employees' religious rights.

What Groff says is that the post office failed to reasonably accommodate his religion, which is in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discriminating against employees based on religion. Under Title VII, an employer cannot fire an employee or even discipline them for practicing their religion.

Groff says even though the postmaster did try to get his shifts covered, that wasn't a reasonable accommodation because it didn't solve the problem. So there is one exception to Title VII. So let's talk about it because it's very critical to this case.

While federal law does prohibit employers from taking any action against an employee for practicing their religion, if the employer can show that the worker's religious practice cannot be reasonably accommodated without undue hardship, it's fine. So that's the test. Now, what is undue hardship? Well, the Supreme Court defined this for us in a 1977 case called Hardison.

And what they said was that undue hardship is met wherever the accommodation would require more than a minimal cost. So what, you know, if you apply that standard to this case, what that's basically saying is that if the post office has to expend more than a minimal cost for a reasonable accommodation, then they can fire their employee. It's fine.

Well, Groff says that the standard doesn't make any sense and that the court needs to reconsider it because what he says is this what they call de minimis test. That's the Latin word for it. This test is lawless and damaging. He says that the plain language of Title VII clearly indicates that the phrase undue hardship imposes a higher bar than just more than a minimal cost.

And he argues that the phrase undue hardship suggests that the accommodations must impose a significant difficulty or expense. Now I ask you, what comes to your mind when you think of undue hardship? Do you agree with what he's saying that undue hardship suggests that the accommodation must impose a significant difficulty or expense? Or do you agree with this de minimis standard that it's just more than a minimal cost? Just think about that.

Herein lies the problem for Groff, though. To overrule Supreme Court precedent is

is very difficult because of what we call stare decisis. To get past this, though, Groff is arguing that Hardison is actually not binding precedent, so we don't have to worry about stare decisis at all. He's saying it's just dicta. The difference is that dicta is persuasive. Binding is binding, right? So precedent that's binding means that the Supreme Court has to follow that precedent. All the courts under the Supreme Court, they have to follow that precedent. The

DICTA, on the other hand, is just persuasive. It doesn't hold as much weight. So he's saying we don't even have to go through the stare decisis factors. This is just DICTA. Why does he say it's DICTA? So he says that the Hardison case, which defined undue hardship, was actually not interpreting Title VII at all. Instead, it was interpreting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guideline at the time. And the definition of undue hardship was just a byproduct of what the case was actually about.

So he says because the undue hardship provision wasn't necessary to reach the decision in Hardison, it's just dicta. It's not binding precedent. So that's part of his argument to the Supreme Court. Now, if they go for that, who knows? If they decide that, no, it is binding precedent, obviously they have to run through all of the stare decisis factors. But if they agree that it's just dicta, then it's going to be a much easier precedent to overturn.

Now, as I mentioned before, the federal district court ruled in favor of the post office, as did the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. In fact, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals actually agreed with Groff.

that the Postal Service's offer to find employees to swap shifts with Groff didn't eliminate the conflict between him and his religious practice and his work obligations, and therefore it wasn't a reasonable accommodation. But ultimately what the court said was that giving Groff an exemption from working on Sunday caused more than a de minimis cost for the Postal Service. And that's why he's saying we need to...

look at this de minimis cost analysis again and rework it because this isn't making any sense. So although the lower courts both ruled in favor of the post office, the Supreme Court may rule differently.

Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, and Justice Gorsuch have all implied that they'd be willing to overturn Hardison in the past. They've said that the undue hardship test doesn't make any sense the way it currently stands. And this court tends to be a bit more sympathetic towards religious discrimination. Now, in saying that, that doesn't mean that he'll get, you know, the majority of votes that he needs to win this case. But I'm curious to know what your thoughts are. Do you, you know, what do you think about this undue hardship test?

Do you think that undue hardship implies something more? Or do you think this, you know, just more than a minimal cost is accurate? Also, what do you think just generally about religion and work? Like, do you think an employer should have any, you know, if you say your religion prohibits you from doing something, like, do you think an employer should have any say in that? Just some things to think about. So let's get into our third story. ♪

What do you think about this proposition? Companies can avoid liability for fraud by showing that an objectively reasonable reading of the law supported their conduct. And it doesn't matter whether the company actually believed that interpretation at the time of their wrongdoing. That's the issue that the Supreme Court heard on Tuesday. So there's actually two cases consolidated into one, but we're going to focus more on one of the two cases.

So this lawsuit was brought by whistleblowers under the False Claims Act, and it accuses various companies like Safeway and Albertsons of offering prescription drugs at discounted prices to most customers that were paying out of pocket while still charging higher rates to the government.

So under the False Claims Act, a defendant is liable for submitting a false claim to the government for payment if it acted knowingly, which the statute defines knowingly as either acting with actual knowledge, deliberate ignorance, or reckless disregard. So in knowing that definition of the False Claims Act, let's talk about what this lawsuit alleges and you let me know your thoughts.

The whistleblower plaintiffs are arguing that federal law requires pharmacies to bill Medicare and Medicaid programs the same price it charges to the general public. This is known as a pharmacy's usual and customary price. But what they're saying is instead pharmacies would charge customers a lower price and then bill the government more.

So in essence, these companies would offer discounted prices to their customers, either through a membership discount program or a price match program, but they wouldn't adjust the usual and customary price that they charge to the government for reimbursement. So they're actually making a profit. So these whistleblowers are saying that these companies knew that they were defrauding the government, and they actually worked to conceal their pricing practices. The companies, on the other hand...

are arguing that Medicare and Medicaid billing requirements were unclear and that their practices were supported by a reasonable reading of the law. So they're saying that under a reasonable reading of the law, because, you know, it wasn't totally 100% understandable and that, you know, when we were reading it, when our lawyers were reading it, a reasonable reading could have said that, you know, we're doing the right thing. We're not doing anything illegal.

This argument, though, contradicts the False Claims Act. Because like I said, the False Claims Act says that the defendant is liable for submitting a false claim if it either acted with actual knowledge, deliberate ignorance, or reckless disregard.

But despite this contradiction, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the companies, saying that the pharmacy operators couldn't be held responsible for fraud given the objectively reasonable interpretation of the law in their favor, even if they didn't actually believe that interpretation and intended to deceive the government. So now this is in front of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is going to decide, does it matter?

If, you know, the companies knew or believed that they were doing something wrong, like, does that matter? Or is it just, hey, when you read this law, it could mean to a reasonable person that what you're doing is fine, even though you know it's illegal. What do you think about it? This decision from the Supreme Court, even though they heard it now, it probably won't be out till June. But I want to know your thoughts. So that takes us into our fourth story.

Prosecutors have charged 84-year-old Andrew Lester with first-degree assault and armed criminal action after he shot 16-year-old Ralph Yarrell on his doorstep.

I'm sure you've seen this story. This has been posted everywhere on social media by a ton of celebrities. I mean, I've seen it on at least 20 different accounts. But basically what happened is Ralph mistakenly approached this man's door last Thursday night. He thought that that's where he was supposed to pick up his two little brothers. Turns out he was at the wrong house. But as he waited at the front door...

Lester, this old man, he shot through the glass door twice and one of the bullets hit Ralph's arm and the other one hit Ralph's head. Ralph survived somehow. He's at home. He's recovering. According to him,

Lester, the old man, told him, don't come around here. But then the Clay County prosecutor said that there didn't appear to be any words exchanged in the encounter. So it's not really clear what happened there. But I figured I would give you both sides of the story. But nonetheless, the prosecutor brought charges, again, like I said, first degree assault charge and a armed criminal action charge. The first degree assault charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. The armed criminal action charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.

Now, what I found interesting, and I'm going to get into both of those charges and the requirements for each, because I have a question for you at the end of this. But what I found interesting was that the prosecutor said he believed race played a role in the shooting, but no hate crimes were filed against Lester. And what's more interesting, I guess, is that even if a hate crime charge was filed, it

It wouldn't make that much of a difference because in Missouri, hate crimes carry a lesser sentence than both first-degree assault and armed criminal action. So as I said, first-degree assault carries a max sentence of life in prison. Armed criminal action carries a max sentence of 15 years. Hate crimes carry a max sentence of four years. So in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn't really make too much of a difference. But when I was researching that, I found that to be pretty interesting.

So let's talk about first degree assault. What the Missouri statute says is a person commits the offense of assault in the first degree if he or she attempts to kill or knowingly causes or attempts to cause serious physical injury to another.

Armed criminal action, let's go over those requirements. It says any person who commits any felony under the laws of the state by, with, or through the use, assistance, or aid of a dangerous instrument or deadly weapon is also guilty of the offense of armed criminal action. So basically, if you're found guilty of any felony and in committing that felony, you used a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument, you're automatically found guilty of armed criminal action.

So now let's finish this conversation by talking about Missouri's stand-your-ground laws, because in the beginning of this episode, I said that it makes for an interesting conversation in this story. So Missouri does have a stand-your-ground law.

And it does allow homeowners to use physical force to defend themselves against intruders. But the law states that a person cannot use deadly force unless they reasonably believe it's necessary to protect themselves or protect another person against death or serious physical injury or a possible felony.

So basically, yes, you can stand your ground. Yes, you can defend yourself from intruders, but you can't use deadly force unless you think you're about to die, you're about to be physically injured, or someone else is about to die, someone else is about to be physically injured, or some sort of felony is about to be committed to you or on your property or whatever.

So perhaps Lester's attorneys will argue that he feared, you know, Lester feared that Ralph was going to commit murder or robbery or seriously injure Lester in some way. But I don't know.

I feel that that's going to be a hard defense to make considering Ralph was just standing there. You know what I mean? Like picture you're the jury and and you see this. I don't know if Lester had a ring camera or any sort of video footage of the doorstep, but picture you're on the jury and you see this the 16 year old kid standing on the doorway or standing on the doorstep and

Your thought may be different here if you saw the 16-year-old rattling with the doorknob or looking in the windows or trying... You know, maybe if he was doing any of those things, you'd think, okay, maybe he's about to commit a robbery. Maybe there's about to be some felony happening here. And in that case, maybe there's a case that Lester was standing his ground. Put yourself in the jury's position. If you're on that jury...

Are you thinking he's got the right to use deadly force under Missouri's standard ground law? And I also want to ask what you think about the charges against Lester. Do you think these charges are justified?

Do you think he'll be found guilty? And again, when you're answering that question, put yourself in the jury's shoes. And, you know, of course, we don't have all the evidence. Like, you can't truly, truly act like you're on the jury without having all the evidence in front of you and assessing the burden of proof accordingly. But knowing what you know about the requirements of the crime, you know, what do you think? That concludes today's episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Please leave me that review on whatever platform you listen. I really appreciate it. And I will talk to you next week.