A Delaware federal judge has again thrown out the defamation lawsuit Arizona man James Ray Epps Sr. filed against Fox News, ruling that his amended complaint failed to state a plausible claim and that his allegations of actual malice amounted to little more than "conclusory statements." The dismissal marks the second time the court has sided with Fox News in the case, which centered on comments former host Tucker Carlson made about Epps and the events of January 6.
U.S. District Judge Jennifer Hall, a Joe Biden appointee, granted Fox News Network, LLC's motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), as Law&Crime reported. The ruling came Friday after months of briefing, a hearing, and additional filings that stretched through the spring and summer of 2025.
The case matters because it tests a question the legal system keeps answering the same way: public figures who sue the press over contested political commentary face a high bar, and Epps could not clear it, not once, not twice.
Epps accused Fox News and Carlson of portraying him as an agent provocateur who "helped stage-manage" the January 6 breach of the Capitol on behalf of the federal government. He filed a defamation suit, but in November 2024 a federal district court ruled in Fox's favor and dismissed the original complaint.
Epps did not walk away. A few weeks after that first loss, he asked the court for permission to re-plead his case with an amended complaint. The court granted leave to amend, giving Epps what the ruling described as "a second bite at the apple."
Fox News filed its motion to dismiss the amended complaint in early January 2025. Epps filed an answering brief. Fox replied later that same month. A hearing and at least one additional filing by Epps followed through the spring and summer of 2025.
None of it was enough. Judge Hall's memorandum opinion concluded that the amended complaint, like the original, could not survive a motion to dismiss.
The judge acknowledged that the amended complaint contained new allegations Epps said were relevant to actual malice, the legal standard a public figure must meet to prove defamation. But she was unpersuaded. In her opinion, Judge Hall wrote:
"I note at the outset that many of the new allegations are conclusory statements and/or legal assertions that the Court need not credit when assessing whether the complaint states a plausible claim."
Hall identified what she called two "fundamental problems" with Epps' theory of actual malice. First, the amended complaint asked the court to infer that Carlson and Fox knew the statements were false because certain employees "thought Carlson's stories were off base." But the judge found no factual basis for that inference.
She wrote that the amended complaint "does not allege any facts suggesting a plausible inference that [those employees] had reason to know that Carlson's statements about Epps were inaccurate." The reason, Hall explained, was straightforward:
"That is not surprising because whether Epps was in fact acting as a federal government informant on January 6 would likely have been, at the time the challenged statements were made, a confidential piece of information known only to government officials."
The second problem was equally fatal. The amended complaint did not allege facts showing those employees shared their concerns with Carlson or anyone responsible for the show's content before publication. In other words, even if some Fox staffers had doubts, Epps could not show those doubts reached the people making editorial decisions.
One employee Epps cited was Abby Grossberg, a then-and-since-fired producer. Judge Hall noted that Epps' own pleadings suggested Grossberg "had no responsibility for the show's content and that her suggestions were ignored." That did not help his case.
Defamation law requires public figures to prove actual malice, meaning the defendant knew a statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. It is a demanding standard, and courts have long held that it protects vigorous public debate, including commentary that turns out to be wrong.
Judge Hall's opinion drove that point home. She found that Epps' actual malice allegations rested "primarily on the opinions of individuals who had no more reason than Carlson to know whether Epps was a federal informant." The judge concluded bluntly:
"That is not enough to proceed."
Taken together, Hall wrote, "the allegations do not give rise to a plausible inference that Carlson or anyone else responsible for [the show] subjectively knew that their statements were false or that they possessed a reckless disregard for the truth." She added that the statements "were not so objectively implausible or internally inconsistent that they cast doubt on Carlson's (or Fox's) state of mind."
Carlson, who left Fox News and has since built an independent media presence, was not a defendant in his own right. The suit named Fox News Network, LLC. Carlson has remained a prominent voice in conservative media, drawing both praise and controversy for his commentary on foreign policy and domestic politics.
The network wasted no time framing the ruling as part of a broader legal winning streak. Newsmax reported that after the initial November 2024 dismissal, Fox said the Epps ruling was the third recent dismissal of defamation claims against the network. Fox stated at the time that it was "pleased with these back-to-back decisions from federal courts preserving the press freedoms of the First Amendment."
In its briefing on the amended complaint, Fox argued that Epps "fails to provide any basis to salvage the Amended Complaint" and that "he does not identify any new factual allegations to alter the holding that he has failed to plead actual malice." The court agreed.
The ruling is a reminder that the actual malice standard, rooted in the Supreme Court's 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, continues to function as a powerful shield for media organizations facing defamation claims from public figures. Critics of that standard exist on both the left and the right, but as applied here, it protected commentary about one of the most politically charged events in recent American history.
The broader conservative media landscape has faced no shortage of legal challenges in recent years. Fox News navigated the high-profile Dominion Voting Systems case through a settlement and has now prevailed twice in the Epps matter.
Several questions remain open. The court's opinion did not address whether Carlson's statements about Epps were true or false, only whether Epps could plausibly allege that Fox acted with actual malice. Judge Hall explicitly noted that whether Epps was acting as a federal government informant on January 6 "would likely have been, at the time the challenged statements were made, a confidential piece of information known only to government officials."
That framing is significant. The court did not rule that Carlson was right. It ruled that Epps could not show Carlson or Fox knew or should have known the statements were wrong, because the relevant facts were, by their nature, hidden from public view.
It is also unclear whether Epps will attempt a further appeal. The twice-dismissed lawsuit has now consumed months of litigation, and the court's language leaves little room for a third try at the same theory. Carlson, meanwhile, has moved on to ventures well beyond his former Fox News program.
Fox News' legal team has now successfully argued twice that Epps' pleadings could not meet the threshold for actual malice. The network's statement after the first dismissal invoked First Amendment press freedoms, and the second ruling only reinforces that position.
Fox News personalities and the network itself continue to face scrutiny from political opponents and plaintiffs, but the Epps case now stands as a clean example of what happens when defamation claims rest on speculation rather than evidence.
Judge Hall's ruling is methodical and narrow. She did not opine on the merits of January 6 conspiracy theories. She did not vindicate Carlson's commentary. She simply held Epps to the legal standard the law requires, and found him short, twice.
The amended complaint added new allegations. The court found them conclusory. It added references to disgruntled employees. The court found they had no access to the relevant facts and no editorial authority over the show. It asked the court to infer malice from disagreement. The court declined.
When the law demands proof and a plaintiff delivers only assertions, the result is predictable. Epps got two chances to make his case. Two federal rulings say he never came close.
