Eckhart v. Fox News Network, LLC
- Ronnie Abrams
- 1:20-cv-05593
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Eckhart v. Henry, Judge Abrams ordered the parties to explain which consent standards apply to the plaintiff’s claims.
Jennifer Eckhart and Ed Henry, whose proposed jury instructions and positions on consent standards were addressed; the order also directed both parties to submit additional letters.
What happened
In Eckhart v. Henry, the parties submitted proposed jury instructions and letters about the instructions for trial. Their joint proposal appeared to use the same consent standard for the plaintiff’s Gender-Motivated Violence Act claims and battery claim.
The court explained that different claims may require different consent standards. Gender-Motivated Violence Act claims based on rape require incapacity or forcible compulsion, while claims based on forcible touching require that the victim did not expressly or indirectly agree. Battery requires touching without consent. For claims under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the court said consent appears relevant to whether the defendant knew or recklessly disregarded that force, fraud, or coercion would be used.
Judge Ronnie Abrams ordered both sides to submit letters by June 20, 2025, stating which consent standard applies to each of the plaintiff’s claims and providing specific legal citations for any disagreement with the court’s explanation. The court said it would discuss the issues later at a conference about the jury instructions.
The detailed version
- Eckhart v. Fox News Network, LLC · No. 1:20-cv-05593
- Ronnie Abrams
- June 13, 2025
Background
The parties submitted proposed jury instructions on May 12, 2025, and later supplemented them with letters explaining their positions. The court stated that the parties appeared to agree that the same consent standard applied to the plaintiff’s claims under New York’s Gender-Motivated Violence Act and to her battery claim.
Consent standards discussed by the court
The court explained that the plaintiff’s claims may use different definitions of consent. For Gender-Motivated Violence Act claims based on rape, the lack-of-consent element requires incapacity or forcible compulsion. For claims based on forcible touching, the applicable standard is lower: the victim must not have expressly or indirectly agreed to the touching. The court stated that the battery claim requires touching without consent, with consent meaning a willingness for the conduct to occur.
The court also discussed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Based on cited Second Circuit decisions, the court stated that consent appears to relate to the element requiring that the defendant acted with knowledge or reckless disregard that force, fraud, or coercion would be used. The court explained that this element would be satisfied if, when recruiting the plaintiff, the defendant planned to use force, fraud, or coercion—or knew there was a chance such conduct might be used—to compel a commercial sex act. If the defendant fully expected the plaintiff to consent and had no plan or awareness that force, fraud, or coercion might be used, the element would not be satisfied.
Order
Ronnie Abrams ordered both parties to submit letters by June 20, 2025, setting out their positions on the consent standard applicable to each of the plaintiff’s claims. The court required specific legal citations for any disagreement with the legal statements in the order and said it would discuss the issues at a later jury-instruction conference. This order did not state a final ruling on the underlying claims or enter a disposition of the case.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.