Judge Cannon just blew up Newsmax's 'shotgun' lawsuit against Fox News before the case even got off the ground [View all]

Source: Law & Crime

Sep 5th, 2025, 5:22 pm


Just one day after Newsmax sued Fox News, claiming the Rupert Murdoch-founded network had illegally monopolized the "right-leaning pay TV" cable news space, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon threw out the lawsuit for being a "shotgun" mess before the case could even get off the ground.

The court docket in Newsmax Broadcasting, LLC v. Fox Corporation and Fox News Network, LLC, shows that the lawsuit was filed on Wednesday under the theory that Fox has engaged in "longstanding and ongoing" anticompetitive conduct that "leverages [its] market power to coerce distributors into not carrying or into marginalizing other right-leaning news channels, including Newsmax."

That same day, Cannon — an appointee of President Donald Trump who dragged out and then threw out special counsel Jack Smith's Espionage Act investigation and prosecution of the then-candidate — was assigned the case.

By Thursday, Cannon had already determined that Newsmax's antitrust complaint must be thrown out as an "impermissible 'shotgun pleading,'" explaining that by "shotgun" she meant "a complaint containing multiple counts where each count adopts the allegations of all preceding counts, causing each successive count to carry all that came before and the last count to be a combination of the entire complaint."

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/judge-cannon-just-blew-up-newsmaxs-shotgun-lawsuit-against-fox-news-before-the-case-even-got-off-the-ground/