ABC destroyed reputation with 'pink slime' descriptor, attorney says

ELK POINT - It took American Broadcasting Companies a month to tear down the reputation that a South Dakota meat processor took three decades to build, the attorney leading a $5.7 billion defamation lawsuit told a Union County court on Monday.

In the first day of what is expected to be a two-month trial, Dan Webb, an attorney for Beef Products Inc., said that ABC, and its reporter Jim Avila, defamed its company by calling its ground beef “pink slime” and misled consumers to believe their product was unsafe.

Webb said that before ABC’s news series ran, BPI’s “lean finely textured beef” was used in most of the country’s ground beef. That changed after the report ran on ABC’s top morning and evening programs, Webb said.

The company saw a 75 percent reduction in demand for its products, he said, which included major grocers like Kroger and Aldi no longer using beef with LFTB in it.

“It (BPI) was almost put out of business by the wrongful actions of the defendants,” Webb told the jury.

►More: Billions of dollars, First Amendment protections, at stake in ABC lawsuit

BPI is bringing the lawsuit under a 1994 South Dakota law that makes it illegal to knowingly disparage agriculture products with falsehoods. The law allows treble damages, which in BPI’s cases would amount to $5.7 billion.

The lawsuit was filed in September 2012 after claims that fallout from ABC’s reporting forced the company to close three of its four plants and eliminate half its workforce.

“By calling our product ‘pink slime’ rather than its true name it impacted how the public perceived our product,” Webb told the jury consisting of 11 women and five men.

ABC’s attorney countered by saying the meat processing company was losing clients over concerns about their product before the broadcaster's report ran.

Dane Butswinkas, an attorney for ABC, said fast food giants McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell stopped using beef containing BPI’s product before the report debuted. While other companies declined to use the product because it didn't make the grade in their opinion.

"When the average consumer looked at it, it might not be what they considered as meat,” Butswinkas said.

According to Butswinkas, a shroud of mystery surrounds how the United States Department of Agriculture created a new category for their beef in the “Hamburger Hierarchy” for BPI, placing the meat in high regards to ground beef. BPI apparently made requests in the late 90’s to “get their own spot” on the ranking list and was initially denied. They were later moved in the hierarchy despite a lack of new research or studies.

Later in the attorney’s opening argument, Butswinkas focused on schools dropping BPI’s product from their lunch menus, stating that 90 percent of the schools had opted not to use it.

Both sides gave jurors a preview of their cases, with BPI’s attorney focusing on how the broadcast company used its reach to alter the perception of the company’s product.

The attorney representing ABC, meanwhile, laid out a timeline showing the steady decline of the company’s product after concerns around the industry arose.

Hearings are set to continue Tuesday in Union County.