Sept. 6 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday dismissed Newmax’s lawsuit accusing Fox News of maintaining a monopoly on conservative news broadcasting on cable television.

Newsmax on Wednesday accused the Fox Corp. and Fox News Network of violating the Sherman Act, Florida Antitrust Act and the Florida Deceptive Trade Practices Act by forcing cable services providers to feature Fox News and its less popular news outlets over Newsmax and other providers of conservative-oriented broadcast news.

U.S. District of Southern Florida Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the complaint without prejudice due to a “shotgun pleading” by Newsmax.

The most common type of shotgun pleading is one in which a complaint contains multiple counts that repeat the allegations of preceding counts, Cannon wrote.

Each successive count “adopts the allegations of all preceding counts, causing each successive count to carry all that came before and the last count to be a combination of the entire complaint,” Cannon wrote.

She said the court is obligated to dismiss shotgun pleadings and require the plaintiff to file an amended case for the matter to proceed in court.

Cannon gave Newsmax through Thursday to file an amended complaint, which “must not contain any successive counts that incorporate all prior allegations.”

She said counts one through five can include the same factual allegations without broadly incorporating the allegations of the prior counts.

“Each count must identify the particular legal basis for liability and contain specific factual allegations that support each cause of action within each count,” Cannon said.

If Newsmax does not file sufficiently amended pleadings by the end of the day on Thursday, Cannon said she might dismiss the case without further notice.

Newsmax called the dismissal a “technical matter” and plans to file an amended complaint, a representative told UPI.

“Newsmax cannot sue their way out of their own competitive failures in the marketplace to chase headlines simply because they can’t attract viewers,” Fox News Media told UPI on Thursday.