Fox News Agrees to Pay $12 Million to Settle Hostile Workplace Case

Fox News has agreed to pay $12 million to Abby Grossberg, a former Fox News producer who accused the network of operating a hostile and discriminatory workplace and forcing her to give false testimony in a declaration.

Parisis G. Filippatos, an attorney for Ms. Grossberg, said the settlement closed all of Ms. Grossberg’s claims against Fox and the people she named in her complaints, including former host Tucker Carlson and some of his producers.

Ms. Grossberg’s legal team filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to dismiss a pending lawsuit against Fox in light of the settlement.

Ms Grossberg said in a statement on Friday that she stood by her allegations but was “encouraged that Fox News has taken me and my legal claims seriously”.

“Based on our conversations with Fox News today, I am hopeful that this resolution marks a positive step for the network regarding the treatment of women and minorities in the workplace,” she said.

A Fox spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The settlement with Ms. Grossberg is the latest development in a series of legal battles involving Fox. In April, the company paid Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million, believed to be the largest settlement amount in a defamation lawsuit. Days later, Fox took Tucker Carlson, its most popular host, off the air after company management concluded he was more of a problem than an asset and had to leave.

Fox is facing a second defamation lawsuit from another voice technology company. Smartmatic, like Dominion, says Fox knowingly spread false information about its products and baseless claims they contributed to election fraud in 2020.

The allegations against Fox by Mrs Grossberg, 42, stemmed in part from the Dominion case. In March, she filed a lawsuit in Delaware alleging that Fox forced her to lie in an affidavit she gave in the case. Ms. Grossberg amended her testimony ahead of the Dominion trial, posing another hurdle for Fox’s legal team, which had already taken a series of blows in preliminary rulings.

Ms. Grossberg also filed a separate lawsuit in New York in which Fox and Mr. Carlson were accused of fostering a culture of rampant misogyny and sexual harassment. She said she had been a victim of sexist and anti-Semitic harassment during her time as head of booking on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Fox fired Ms. Grossberg four days after she filed the two lawsuits, saying in a statement at the time that she had released privileged information about the Dominion case. She dropped the lawsuit in Delaware in May, but her attorney said at the time that they planned to re-enroll in New York.

Ms. Grossberg joined Fox News in 2019 as a senior producer for host Maria Bartiromo. In August 2022, she transferred to Mr. Carlson’s team as Head of Booking.

In her lawsuit, Ms. Grossberg said she found a workplace tainted with misogyny and harassment where male producers were openly sexist to her and her colleagues, made crude jokes and decorated the space with photos of Nancy Pelosi, when the House speaker, in a bathing suit with plunging neckline.

Ms. Grossberg never met Mr. Carlson, who worked primarily from his homes in Florida and Maine, but she corresponded with him regularly via email, text, and video calls. Mr. Carlson’s New York staff was led by Justin Wells, the senior executive producer. (Mr. Wells was fired by Fox in April.)

After filing her lawsuits, Ms. Grossberg trickled audio recordings from her time at Fox to other media organizations. The recordings showed, among other things, the immenseness of Mr. Carlson influence on the Republican Party; an admission by Rudy Giuliani, attorney for former President Donald J. Trump, that he had no evidence of voter fraud; and discussions between Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Ms. Bartiromo about his attempts to block President Biden’s election victory.

Mr. Filippatos, Ms. Grossberg’s attorney, confirmed that he had been approached by the office of special counsel investigating Mr Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and that he and his client were cooperating. At least 90 tapes had been recovered and Ms Grossberg’s legal team forensically analyzed all of Ms Grossberg’s devices in case there were any more recordings, Mr Filippatos said.

Ms. Grossberg said she would not comment further on her allegations against Fox or her time with the company, but would “continue to speak out on issues and matters I believe in, including journalism, equality, dignity and respect in the workplace. ”