- Fox News threatened legal action against a Ukrainian family whose daughter died reporting for the network.
- The Kuvshynovs are suing Fox, alleging it endangered their daughter.
- Fox said it would pursue them if they broke an earlier non-disparagement deal, which the family says is unfair.
Days before a Ukrainian family filed a lawsuit against Fox News over the death of their daughter, they received a letter from the network threatening retaliation.
In correspondence seen by Business Insider, Fox News said it would take action against the parents of Oleksandra Kuvshynova if they broke a waiver and non-disparagement agreement signed shortly after her death as part of a compensation package.
In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, the network was accused of failing to ensure the safety of Kuvshynova, a young Ukrainian producer who was killed while helping Fox News cover the Russian invasion in 2022.
Kuvshynova was with a team of Fox News journalists and Ukrainian soldiers on the outskirts of Kyiv on March 14, 2022.
Their car was hit, and the explosion killed Kuvshynova, cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, and several soldiers. Fox correspondent Ben Hall was also there, and survived but with life-changing injuries.
Kuvshynova’s family now says that Fox took unacceptable risks, including continuing the trip despite one of the company’s security consultants vetoing it.
Fox also left behind another security consultant during the journey, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit claimed that in the aftermath, the defendants withheld information about the events and later offered a “misleading” narrative.
The family is seeking unspecified damages for wrongful death and fraud, among other claims.
Business Insider has been unable to independently verify the lawsuit’s claims.
Soon after it was filed, Fox News said in a statement: “While we understand the grief and continue to mourn the loss of both Pierre Zakrzewski and Sasha Kuvshynova, we will respectfully defend against the inaccurate claims within this lawsuit.”
It added: “The safety of our journalists has always been our number one priority and we are immensely grateful to the Fox News journalists who have covered the war in Ukraine and we remain committed to reporting from the region.”
It did not respond on the record to Business Insider’s request for details of the alleged inaccuracies.
Compensation with a catch
In the aftermath of Kuvshynova’s death, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott contacted her father, Andriy, offering her condolences, the lawsuit says.
The same day, Fox News’ HR department also reached out, it said, seeking to pay the young producer’s back pay, to cover her funeral costs, and to offer the life insurance coverage it gives to its employees.
The agreement included a waiver with confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses, according to the correspondence seen by BI.
A person with knowledge of the situation told BI that had Fox reached out to the family “to try and make the pain less by voluntarily offering various forms of assistance that were not contractually required.”
They said it “was accepted by Sasha’s parents and memorialized in a writing.”
The correspondence seen by BI was not “communications between Fox and Sasha’s parents but rather communications between the lawyers,” the person said, adding: “It is unfortunate that a lawyer has now decided to turn Fox’s voluntary acts of kindness into something different.”
The family’s lawsuit claims that Fox attempted to impose non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements on all surviving family members.
The Kuvshynovs’ lawyer, Stephen Humphreys, argues that the waiver has no standing because the family — which had no lawyer when it signed — was unaware of details of how reckless Fox had been.
“Part of our claim is that the Kuvshynovs were induced into signing away all their rights without knowing what Fox had done, and not knowing that, wow, we actually might have a lawsuit against them,” Humphreys told BI.
The family was left to assume that Kuvshynova had fallen victim to the inevitable dangers of war reporting, Humphreys said, rather than what he called “incredibly reckless, crazy things.”
In correspondence with Fox, seen by BI, Humphreys also argued that objectively sharing the details of Fox’s actions around the time of Kuvshynova’s death doesn’t constitute disparagement.
Fox doesn’t see it that way.
In its letter on March 1, Fox’s lawyers reiterated that Kuvshynova’s parents signed an agreement accepting compensation.
“Your clients cannot legally dishonor the agreement, which includes a release as well as confidentiality and non-disparagement obligations,” they said.
