Beef Company Begins Billion-Dollar 'Pink Slime’ Court Case Against ABC News

Five years ago, ABC Correspondent Jim Avila was working the pink slime beat.

His search for the truth about meat processing and marketing eventually led him to investigate a product called "lean finely textured beef" (LFTB), beef trimmed from whole muscle cuts of beef which is then subjected to a process which separates the lean beef from the fat. LFTB can then be added to other cuts of meat to make ground beef products.

Avila's report eventually resulted in a $1.9 billion lawsuit from a company that produces LFTB. Quoting an FDA whistleblower, ABC claimed in their investigation that "70 percent of the ground beef we buy at the supermarket contain something he calls 'pink slime.'"

Dakota Dunes-based Beef Products Inc. (BPI) claimed that the backlash from 2012 ABC report led to a three-million-pound-per-week drop in its LFTB sales, the closure of three of its plants, and more than 700 employees losing their jobs. BPI called the investigative reporting "a concerted disinformation campaign" that amounted to defamation and a massive loss of money.

"The blatantly false and disparaging statements made about our lean beef have done more than hurt my family and our companies, they have jeopardized the future of our employees and their families," BPI CEO Eldon Roth said at the time, adding that, "ABC and other individuals knowingly misled consumers into believing that LFTB was not beef and not safe for public consumption, which is completely false."

Or, to use the parlance of our times, BPI essentially accused ABC of disseminating fake news that was catastrophic for its bottom line.

Earlier this year, South Dakota Judge Cheryle Gering gave the go-ahead for a state trial by jury, dismissing only the defamation claims against Diane Sawyer. Now, the legal battle is in full swing as jury selection commences in a Sioux Falls courtroom. But in order to win, BPI will have to prove a whole lot more than hurt feelings and financial loss.

According to a lawyer who spoke with NPR, BPI has to prove that ABC News actually said that the beef product was unsafe to consume and that this published information was untrue; then, on top of that, they have to prove malice.

In the initial report, ABC described "pink slime" or LFTB as "beef trimmings that were once used only in dog food and cooking oil, now sprayed with ammonia to make them safe to eat and then added to most ground beef as a cheaper filler." It doesn't exactly sound appetizing, but it doesn't necessarily sound unsafe, either.

Ultimately, it will be up to the men and women of the jury to determine these facts, and, given the amount of money and evidence at play here, it might be a long time before they come to a decision—or eat a burger ever again.

Correction: A previous version of this story referred to LFTB as "cheap filler," when in fact it is not a filler, but a beef product. According to USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, if a product is labeled as "Hamburger," it can contain all beef or beef and beef fat. Fillers are products like breadcrumbs or flours and are not permitted to be labeled as "Hamburger."