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NEWS RELEASE: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Reporters Committee applauds decision in Food Lion case

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Oct. 20, 1999

Contact: Gregg P. Leslie, (703) 807-2100

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Today's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond (4th Circuit)

to throw out most of the claims brought by the Food Lion grocery chain

against ABC will help stop the dangerous trend in "newsgathering"

lawsuits that try to execute an "end run" around First Amendment

protections, according to The Reporters Committee for Freedom of

the Press.

"The court today upheld the principle that a party cannot circumvent

First Amendment protections afforded the news media by attacking the

methods through which news is gathered," according to Gregg P. Leslie,

Acting Executive Director of the Reporters Committee.

"Even though it found that the ABC employees had trespassed and

breached a duty of loyalty to Food Lion, the court said the food

chain cannot use that fact to recover millions of dollars from ABC

after the Food Lion stock price fell, apparently in response to the

ABC story on unsanitary practices," Leslie said.

Food Lion never sued ABC for libel, and admitted in court that it

did not think it could prove that ABC acted with actual malice --

knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth.

"This high standard of proof exists for a reason; to ensure that

the media can freely report on matters of public importance without

undue fear that the occasional error will lead to a huge libel

verdict," according to Leslie. "Companies like Food Lion want to

recover damages when they don't like what's being reported. They

try to get around the burden of proof required in libel claims by

suing for other ‘newsgathering' tort claims, such as trespass,

fraud and breach of loyalty. This decision sends such companies a

clear message -- it won't work."

In 1992, two producers for ABC's "PrimeTime Live" modified their

resumes to obtain jobs in Food Lion stores to document allegedly

unhealthy food handling practices. A jury later found that the two

had committed fraud, trespass, and breach of loyalty to Food Lion,

and awarded the grocery chain more than $5 million in damages in

January 1997. That amount was later reduced to just over $316,000

by the judge. In today's action, the appellate court threw out the

fraud claim -- which was the basis for all but $2 of the damages

awarded -- after finding that Food Lion had not been harmed by its

reliance on the producers' actions. The court reduced the total

award to Food Lion to $2.