Judge Dismisses Defamation Suit Against Fox News Brought by Jan. 6 Figure

A federal judge on Wednesday tossed out a defamation lawsuit against Fox News brought by a man who claimed that the network’s former star host, Tucker Carlson, had falsely accused him of being a government provocateur who instigated the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Ruling from the bench in Federal District Court in Wilmington, Del., the judge, Jennifer L. Hall, dismissed the defamation claims by the man, Ray Epps. He and his lawyers had failed to prove that Mr. Carlson had acted with “actual malice,” the judge said.

Mr. Epps had accused Mr. Carlson last summer of promoting a “fantastical story” that he was an undercover agent who had helped foment the riot at the Capitol to disparage President Donald J. Trump and his followers.

Defamation lawsuits are notoriously difficult to win — especially those brought against members of the news media. Judge Hall seemed to acknowledge as much by saying that even if Mr. Carlson had “engaged in subpar journalism” or failed to fully investigate Mr. Epps’s story, that did not mean he had acted with malicious intent.

The dismissal of Mr. Epps’s case was a victory for Mr. Carlson, who left Fox under a cloud last year, days after the network had agreed to pay more than $787 million to settle a separate defamation suit brought against it by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion had claimed that Fox promoted misinformation on air that its machines had been used in a plot to flip votes from Mr. Trump during the 2020 election.

In a statement, Fox said the dismissal of Mr. Epps’s case was the third time in recent months that judges had tossed out defamation claims against the network.