ABC/Disney Co. Settles $1.9 Billion “Pink Slime” Defamation Lawsuit Brought by Beef Products Inc (BPI)

 

 

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

ABC/Disney Co. Settles $1.9 Billion BPI Defamation Lawsuit – “Pink Slime” Case…

By sundance
June 28, 2017
The Last Refuge

Stunning win for Beef Products Inc (BPI) in a $1.9 billion defamation lawsuit against ABC news (Disney Co.)

The civil trial began June 5th and ABC legal executives must have see [sic] the writing on the wall as the initial $1.9 billion in damages could have potentially tripled under South Dakota law (treble damages) to $5.7 billion if they allowed the three week trial to continue.

The actual defamation settlement is undisclosed. However, at the point of settlement all reasonable assumptions must be that BPI was well positioned to win far more than the initially demanded settlement amount of $1.9 billion.

(Reuters) – The U.S. ABC television network, owned by Walt Disney Co , has settled its closely watched defamation lawsuit with Beef Products Inc over news reports on a processed beef product that critics dubbed “pink slime,” both companies said on Wednesday.

Terms of the settlement, which also covered the Beef Products Inc (BPI) claims against ABC reporter Jim Avila, were not disclosed.

Privately-held BPI had claimed that the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and Avila defamed the company by calling its processed beef product “pink slime” and making errors and omissions in a series of 2012 reports. BPI calls the product “lean finely textured beef.”

BPI attorney Dan Webb told Reuters the settlement came together “quickly this week,” but declined to provide details, citing a confidentiality agreement signed by both parties.

The settlement came 3-1/2 weeks after the trial in the case got under way in Elk Point, South Dakota, around 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Sioux City, Iowa. BPI is based in nearby Dakota Dunes, South Dakota. (read more)

The ramifications of this $1.9+ Billion defamation lawsuit victory will extend far beyond the media settlement in this case and will surely send a massive shock-wave through every media enterprise engaged in investigative and opinion journalism.
 

Next Up?

 

 

Scott Stringer Reuters 

The real ‘pink slime’ agenda
By Jeff Stier
April 6, 2012 | 4:00 a.m.
New York Post

It’s not enough for Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer that the city schools are jumping on the latest elite food fad by dropping “pink slime”: He wants them on the bandwagon now.

Let’s be clear: The meat product known as “lean finely textured beef” does look gross. But so does just about every meat product — ever seen how they make pastrami? And this stuff is perfectly safe, and almost certainly healthier than its likely replacement.

The US Department of Agriculture goes to great lengths to ensure that the national school-lunch program serves appropriate food to America’s kids. And its scientists have been unambiguous: This meat product is perfectly fine.

But activist celebrity chef Jamie Oliver decided to make a stink about it, and “right-thinking” people have rushed to go along.

City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott acknowledges the feds say the meat is safe, but he lobbied them into letting him ban it anyway. It’s off the menu by September.

[N.S.: Note that lefties like Dennis Walcott never complained about Michelle “Obama’s” inedible school lunches, which kids routinely dumped.]

That’s not fast enough for Stringer, who’s grandstanding for an immediate ban. He calls it “garbage,” as if there’s actually something wrong with it, other than the gross “pink slime” moniker.

Funny, it wasn’t so long ago that food activists claimed they wanted our food to be more “sustainable.” Yet this stuff is an innovative model of sustainable agriculture: It’s made with a process that safely uses parts of the animal that previously had been either discarded, or used for lower-value uses, such as animal food. And since the fat is melted out of the meat before it’s mixed into other ground beef, “pink slime” actually yields lower-fat meals.

It’s also safe: It’s treated to make it inhospitable to dangerous E. Coli bacteria. And the main company that makes it, Beef Products International, tests the meat more than USDA’s already strict regulations require. That’s more than can be said about the different ground-up cow that’s likely to replace it.

It’s been used for years by schools, leading fast-food outlets and major supermarket chains. And if it didn’t taste good, kids would have voted with their stomachs long ago.

Why waste scare [sic] dollars to switch to more expensive, higher-fat alternatives?

The real (and ridiculous) agenda here is to make us all go organic. According to food activist MicheleSimon, “Pink slime is just one of many problems with industrialized meat. So let’s hope this week’s groundswell of interest in pink slime inspires Americans to demand labeling, buy organic or stop eating ground beef all together.”

And Mark Bittman in The New York Times calls the “pink menace” a symptom of a larger disease — “the industrial production of livestock on a scale that’s far too large to sustain without significant collateral damage.”

These people only want us eating grass-fed free-range cattle, if we eat any meat at all. Scott Stringer may be able to afford that diet, but it’s pathetic for politicians to kowtow to dishonest elitists.

Jeff Stier is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.