Tort law allows anyone injured by the intentional bad act of another to sue for personal injury, property damage, or economic loss caused by the wrongful activity. The specific claim that relates to harm caused by deliberate misrepresentations is fraud, and, depending on what misinformation someone ingested, and how they reacted to it, it’s easy to imagine that many viewers would be able to state a good claim. What’s needed to prove a case for fraud is clearly established through centuries of judicial decisions.

First, the plaintiff has to prove that the defendant made a misstatement of fact, knowing that it was false or with reckless disregard as to whether it was true or false. (“Reckless disregard” means that the defendant did no investigation at all, but just put the statements out there.) Examples of such misstatements on Fox are abundant. Here are a few clips (starting about 50 seconds in) where Carlson and Lara Trump, as a guest on Sean Hannity’s show, say that COVID is really about “social control,” and where Carlson calls the COVID response a “scandal.” Here’s Carlson questioning whether the vaccine works, since those who are vaccinated are still urged to take precautions: “Maybe it doesn’t work, and they’re simply not telling you that.” (This is not how vaccine efficacy works. No immunization is 100 percent effective, so there’s always a small chance of infection, a smaller chance of illness, and an infinitesimally small chance of death even among the fully vaccinated.) Here’s Carlson giving airtime to Alex Berenson, “The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man,” allowing him to spout more nonsense about the vaccine’s supposed lack of efficacy. Want more? Beyond Carlson, here (starting at about 3:21) are some Fox News personalities misrepresenting the door-to-door effort by the Biden administration to educate people and answer their questions about the vaccine. It’s the Taliban! It’s a violation of medical privacy! It’s to force you to take the vaccine! (No, no, and no. The vaccine educators are from the local community; they don’t even work for the government.) These purveyors of misinformation are either lying, or acting in reckless disregard of truth versus falsity by not doing even the most basic research to check out what they’re spewing. And it’s also considered a misrepresentation to state a half-truth, leaving out vital information needed to place a statement in context. That’s exactly the case with Carlson’s mock questioning of the vaccine’s efficacy; it paints a willfully incomplete picture.