WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 29: Fox News host Tucker Carlson discusses ‘Populism and the Right’ during the National Review Institute’s Ideas Summit at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel March 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Disavowing any conflict of interest, Fox Corporation’s powerhouse law firm distanced itself from ex-host Tucker Carlson as a client in a discrimination lawsuit brought by his former producer Abby Grossberg.
Shortly before Fox’s settlement with Dominion, Grossberg sued the network and Carlson in New York and Delaware, claiming pervasive religious and gender bias. Grossberg also accused Fox’s attorneys of coaching her into giving “coerced” and misleading testimony that would make her and host Maria Bartiromo the network’s “sacrificial female lambs.”
Fox later entered into a $787.5 million deal with Dominion on the eve of trial, but Grossberg’s litigation endured.
On Friday, Fox’s law firm Baker McKenzie — which has dozens of offices internationally and reported $3.1 billion in revenue in 2021 — affirmed in court that it had “not entered an appearance on behalf of Mr. Carlson on this Court’s docket.”
“Mr. Carlson will be represented by separate counsel in this matter, who will enter an appearance reflecting as much,” the firm’s partner Paul Evans wrote.
Grossberg’s attorney Parisis G. Filippatos called that statement distancing the firm from Carlson “patently misleading and false.”
In an email on April 10, 2023, Evans told Filippatos that he could now “now confirm” that Baker McKenzie would “also be representing” Carlson and other individual defendants. Evans did not appear to file a notice of appearance indicating this to the court.
An email from Fox’s attorney that Abby Grossberg’s legal team proves it also represented Tucker Carlson, despite asserting the contrary.
Some two days after that email, a Delaware judge sanctioned the network’s legal team for not telling him the full story about Rupert Murdoch’s role in Fox News, as opposed to the Fox Corporation.
“I need people to tell me the truth,” Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis scolded on April 12. “And by the way, omission is a lie.”
Grossberg’s legal team cited this exchange in a footnote.
“It is shocking that this is not the first litigation this year — involving both parties in some manner — where Fox, through its attorneys, has chosen to be less than fully honest and truthful with the Court,” Filippatos wrote in a footnote. “Thus, the evasive and deceptive conduct of Fox’s attorneys before your honor at the outset of this case is particularly troubling on the heels of Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis’s widely-reported stern rebuke of the Fox attorneys in the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox matter for having made certain statements the veracity of which was very much in doubt.”
Grossberg’s legal team asked U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman to order Carlson to obtain new counsel before the next hearing scheduled for June 15, 2023, one month from today.
“For all of the foregoing reasons we respectfully reiterate our prior request that Mr. Carlson be ordered to obtain suitable counsel prior to the June 15th Preliminary Conference, as well as in advance of his obligation to answer or otherwise move with respect to plaintiff’s pleading on or before June 16, 2023,” the filing concludes.
Fox didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
On Monday, Judge Furman ordered Fox and Carlson to respond quickly to that request. Fox must file a response by Wednesday, and Carlson must enter a notice of appearance that day.
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