Back in September, South Dakota’s Beef Products, Inc. sued ABC News for defamation, claiming investigative pieces on “pink slime” made by the company crushed demand for the product and forced BPI to close three-quarters of its plants and lay off more than 700 workers. Now one of those laid-off workers, Bruce Smith, is also suing a group of people including ABC News, anti-pink-slime-crusader Jamie Oliver, and school-lunch blogger Bettina Siegel (who says on her blog that she hasn’t yet been served with the suit). Smith is seeking $70,000 damages, a number he tells the Daily Mail is low enough to keep the case from going to federal court: “I want the people I have sued. I want them here in the locality where the damage is done,” he says. “And if that means not suing for everything I can, so be it.” [Daily Mail UK, Earlier]
