According to the Huffington Post, a South Dakota judge refused to dismiss a defamation lawsuit against ABC News. Beef Products Inc has sued the television network over the labeling of the former's lean, finely textured beef. BPI had said that ABC's label had caused the closure of its three plants and the layoffs of 700 of its employees as customers are no longer keen in buying their product.
On the other hand, Judge Cheryle Gering had said in her ruling that ABC is not protected against liability by stating in its news reports that BPI's beef is safe and nutritious and had allowed some of the meat producer's claim under this argument to move forward.
The Huffington Post said that lean, finely textured beef is produced via a process that involved using leftover trimmings from a butchered cow are heated, separating from fat and treating the meat with ammonia gas to kill bacteria.
In December of last year, attorneys for BPI said that the television network's statements about the US Food and Drug Administration's statement deeming its product safe were combined with negative context that the meat product was a filler or technically not meat. Moreover, ABC's statements allegedly implied that the USFDA was not a credible source as the agency overruled scientists in the approval of the use of its products.
BPI's lawsuit against ABC, which was filed by the meat producer in 2012, is seeking $1.2 billion in damages, the Huffington Post had said. Aside from the television network, BPI also named ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer, ABC correspondents Jim Avila and David Kerley, US Department of Agriculture microbiologist Gerald Zirnstein, who named the product "pink slime," former federal food scientist Carl Custer, and former BPI quality assurance manager Kit Foshee, who was interviewed by ABC, as its co-defendants in the case.
