The parent company of ABC paid $177 million to Beef Products Inc. to settle a defamation suit filed by the South Dakota meat processor over news stories aired in 2012, said CNN Money. A lawyer for BPI told CNN the settlement was larger than the figure listed by Walt Disney Co. in a quarterly earnings report, leading the network to say “the rest will presumably be covered by insurance.”
By itself, the $177 million would be the largest payment in a media defamation case, according to Dan Webb, the lawyer who led the BPI legal team, reported CNN. “As I said at the time, we got an extraordinarily favorable settlement,” said Webb.
The settlement was announced in late June while the trial was under way, but its terms were not yet disclosed. At that time, BPI said the settlement would provide “a strong foundation on which to grow the business” and said the case proved that its lean finely textured beef is safe and wholesome. A former USDA microbiologist is credited with coining the term “pink slime” to refer to the product. ABC News said it did not retract or apologize for its reporting.
BPI sued for $1.9 billion in damages, saying the news stories damaged its sales and forced it to close three of its four plants.