Poultry Farm Cries Foul, Appeals Dismissal of Product Disparagement Suit Against CBS

A Georgia-based poultry farm has reportedly appealed a federal court
ruling dismissing libel, slander and product disparagement claims against
CBS, which apparently aired a segment on its 60 Minutes program in 2003
about alleged terrorist money laundering involving dead chickens. Mar-Jac
Poultry, Inc. v. Katz, No. 03-2422 (D.D.C., dismissal entered March
30, 2011). The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has apparently not yet indicated
whether it will hear the appeal.

The segment focused on a purported “terrorist hunter” whose actions in ferreting out terrorist activity in the United States apparently led the U.S. government to raid a poultry farm after she claimed that Saudis had purchased it. According to Rita Katz, who appeared on the program in disguise, chicken was the best cover for money laundering because “chicken is one of the things that no one really can track it down. If you say in one year that you lost 10 million chickens, no one can prove it. They just died. You can’t trace money with chickens.” The implication was that money “lost” this way could have funded Hamas or Islamic Jihad or al-Qaida.

The district court dismissed the case, finding that, while the company’s name, never spoken aloud during the broadcast, was displayed several times, the broadcast never stated that Mar-Jac was knowingly involved in money laundering. The court also determined that “no reasonable jury could find that Ms. Katz’s statements about laundering money through misreporting dead chickens were anything but rank speculation, surmise or hyperbole, engendered, perhaps, by her thrill at being involved in an un[der]cover capacity. Ms. Katz’s story was greeted with a fair amount of skepticism by [“60 Minutes” correspondent] Mr. Simon, and nothing suggested she could make knowing statements about slaughtering chickens.” Responding to the court’s characterization of the statements as hyperbole, Mar-Jac’s counsel was quoted as saying, “To the contrary, this program has a reputation for broadcasting facts. This finding by the court poses a dilemma for CBS: can the network let this judgment about one of its premier news program[s] stand?”

The parties dismissed correspondent Bob Simon by agreement, and the
district court, finding the challenged statements, even if defamatory,
protected by the First Amendment, granted the defendants’ joint motion for
summary judgment. See The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times, April 26, 2011.