September 19, 2011
Food Lion, Inc. v. Capital Cities/ABC
Facts of Case:
Producers at ABC were tipped off about possible unsanitary meat packing practices taking place at Food Lion. The producers decided to go under cover to investigate the claims. Two reporters applied for jobs with false identities, resumes, and addresses. They left out that they worked for ABC. They worked for a combined three weeks, getting 45 hours of footage. Some of the footage was used in a 1992 broadcast of Primetime Live.
Food Lion sued ABC not over defamation but over the ways in which ABC gathered the information. They sued for fraud, breach of duty of loyalty, trespass, and unfair trade practices.
Legal Issue:
The issues here was whether the two ABC reporters did commit fraud, breach of duty of loyalty, trespass, and unfair trade practices. They used false identities and mislead Food Lion when hired. They knowingly committed acts that they knew would harm Food Lion, their secondary employer. Since they got hired under false information, they trespassed to get information.
Decision:
When the case came to the supreme court they reversed the decision that the reporters committed fraud and unfair trade practices. They affirmed that they breached their duty of loyalty and committed a trespass. They also affirmed the district court’s refusal to allow Food Lion to prove publication damages, on First Amendment Grounds.
Analysis:
Since Food Lion sued for how ABC gathered their information and not defamation, the courts looked at the fine print in North and South Carolina’s rules about business and trade. Basically what it came down to time and again was filling out false information on their applications and resumes, as well as their intent to do harm to Food Lion.
Questions:
What is the significance of this case?
Who do you think was more in the wrong? Food Lion or ABC?
Do you agree with the ruling that they committed breach of duty of loyalty and committed a trespass?
10 thoughts on “Food Lion, Inc. v. Capital Cities/ABC (1992)”
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September 21st, 2011 at 2:42 pm
1. The significance of this case is that reporters now have legislation to supports them going undercover to gather information.
2. I think Food Lion was more in the wrong in this instance. The were hoodwinking thier customers, and with food (which is disgusting). If they were doing somthing wrong, then their customers deserve to know. The trust issue they feel was broken by thier employees (the reporters) lying to them was exactly what they were doing by dying old meat in order to trick thier customers into thinking it was fresh. Now that companies have first amendment rights I think the confidentiality clauses for employees should be removed. Regular citizens cannot sue someone for ratting them out when they have committed a crime, and companies or corporations should not be able to either. You only need this protection if your intending to do somthing wrong.
3. I agree the reporters may have breached the contract that they were forced to sign to get the job, but for anyone who has ever worked in a menial labor position for very little pay and even less respect, I do not think that loyalty is somthing the company has a right to ask for. Especially when your job is expendable to them.
September 21st, 2011 at 4:26 pm
I think this case allowed journalist to break rules as long as their intent was good. I think that this opens the doors to a lot of problems. You don’t need a license to be a journalist, so who would set the standards when and where it was okay to pose as in average individual to uncover a story.
Although what Food Lion was doing was wrong I do not side with ABC. What if the journalist had gone undercover and found nothing, or they found something but it wasn’t considered valuable to the rest of society?
I think this case allows to many loop holes therefore I do not agree with the verdict. I think if the situations were only slightly different then it would have caused a lot of problems. What if journalist we allowed to pose as cops, doctors, skilled labor workers… this is not the way to uncover a story.
September 21st, 2011 at 6:15 pm
In this situation, both parties are in the wrong. Obviously, what Food Lion did was unsanitary, unhealthy and might have had more serious consequences had this occurred now, as opposed to in 1992. However, ABC did lie, provide false documentation, etc. in order to gain that kind of access. I don’t think there is any question that they committed a trespass and breach of contract. However, I agree with what Darcy said, that multi-state corporations have little right to ask for loyalty from employees that are essentially “expendable.”
You could say that this case set a precedent for future potential “undercover stories.” Since ABC was deemed in the wrong for how they went about getting into positions of employment at Food Lion, it might deter future new companies from attempting similar stories.
September 21st, 2011 at 9:31 pm
I think that the significance of this case was to open up the playing field to allow journalists to seek and report the truth in a new way. They are going under cover to get their information because if they just flat out asked Food Lion like clearly they aren’t going to be wrong in anyway. The only way for the journalists to get the correct information was to go under cover.
I 100% think that Food Lion was wrong and that it was good that they got caught because in no way should a grocery store have unsanitary meat packing practices. This can be so harmful to people in so many different ways. I personally worked at a meat company that my family owned and we had to be super careful with anything that involved handling meat. I think ABC had every right to bust them before they made any of their customers sick.
I mean I can see where they would have trespassed or committed fraud because of their false identities. However, I think that Food Lion was just trying to use this because they got caught and wanted ABC to be wrong so they didn’t look as bad.
September 21st, 2011 at 10:59 pm
Journalist should seek the truth and report it. I am not siding with Food Lion because they were lien to their costumers about unsanitary food. The idea that Food Lion was lien to their costumers and tricking them to believe their meats are fresh is disgusting, which can cause harm to consumers. No food mart should be selling unsanitary food. I do not think they court should of sided with either. Reporters have to make people that they can be comfortable to get information out of them but if reporters would ask Food Lion about the situation they would of lied. The intention of the two reporter was good. I believe that ABC had the right to catch Food Lion before someone became sick and be to late.
September 22nd, 2011 at 2:05 pm
I agree with Jburich, that journalists have to seek the truth and report it. Even though the journalists had to go undercover to seek the truth and report it, that was the only way the journalists could seek the truth. I can understand why Food Lion was upset and sued about the story when the journalists went undercover, but they are just mad that they got caught in the act.
Every customer had every right to know what Food Lion did to their food. If Food Lion kept on doing the unsanitary acts to their food and got customers sick, they would be at 100% fault. However, the journalists who covered it, yes undercover, were sued and lost the case. That is not just since they reported honest facts to the public.
September 22nd, 2011 at 6:24 pm
This is a very interesting case because ethics play a large part in the case itself. Is it ethical to mislead a business in order to obtain information about said business that the public potentially needs to know? In other words, in this case do the ends justify the means, as Machiavelli would say?
I think that if there is a potential for people to get sick from the food at a business, then it is a reporter’s job to find that information out and tell the public about their findings. I think in this case because the reporters had a tip that the meat packing procedures were questionable; they had reasonable cause to believe that this needed to be investigated. While it is frowned upon to mislead someone, even when that someone is a business, it is also important to find the information out that could be hurting people.
I think that what ABC should have done in this situation would be to first ask Food Lion straight up if they could observe their meat packing procedures. If during that process, Food Lion did not cooperate or if there was reason to believe that they were trying to make themselves look better than they actually are, then the step to go undercover could be made. The truth needs to be found out in every situation.
I think that posing as employees, does not present a risk to Food Lion. I think that while it may be frowned upon as unethical, it was necessary to find out what was going on. I think it is interesting that the Food Lion and the courts believed that this was breach of duty. I believe that our first duty should be to help our fellow man and tell them when there is something that could harm them.
In America and various other places, the first goal is not to help the fellow man it is to make money and look out for businesses and their economic dealings. The standard should be that we are ethical to people not ethical in the sense of making sure that a business’s reputation is maintained so that they can make the most money possible.
September 22nd, 2011 at 9:52 pm
1. The significance of this case is that journalists are finding new ways to gain information that they may not have been able to get if they had tried to get information in the traditional way.
2. I do think that the unsanitary practices of Food Lion should have been exposed to the public, but I do not totally agree with the way in which ABC went about getting their info. In my opinion I dont think it was ethical for the reporters to use false names and resumes to get hired and then inentionally cause harm to the reputation of Food Lion.I feel as though there are other ways that the reporters could have gained the same information.
3. I dont think that the reporters committed a breach of duty and loyalty because if the food practices are unsanitary then the public has the right to know. Even though the reporters did intentionally get hired to expose these practices, a regular employee could have done the exact same thing.
September 22nd, 2011 at 10:27 pm
1. The significance of this case is that it provides a precedent addressing journalists’ right to go undercover to obtain information.
2. Although this case involves complex ethical dilemmas, I believe Food Lion was undoubtedly in the wrong in this case. The ABC reporters would not have gone undercover to obtain this information had Food Lion not been committing unsanitary practices with its food. Although two wrongs don’t make a right, the wrongs began with Food Lion’s practices.
3. No, I do not agree with the ruling that the ABC reporters committed breach of duty of loyalty and committed a trespass. Although their decision may not be regarding as the most ethical, the reporters’ primary duty was exposing unsanitary practices, which the public has a right to know. Any Food Lion employee could have exposed a film of the practices. I think Food Lion pointed out the breach of loyalty technicality to divert attention from its food packaging problem, rather than address it.
September 23rd, 2011 at 9:10 pm
I think that ABC is wrong in this case. I think that this should be slander per se because it is a charge of moral turpitude and they can injure someone’s reputation. Also, in the code of ethics, it states to avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information. ABC did breach a duty of loyalty, but I am not sure about trespassing because I don’t know what exactly is considered trespassing. They lied about their identities and mislead the company. Also, instead of being neutral, ABC intentionally tried to harm the company’s reputation.