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The Food Lion Scandal

This report will review the cases Food Lion vs. Capital Cities/ABC and Cincinnati Enquirer vs. Chiquita.   Both of these cases involve laws and ethics in the field of journalism.   A summary of each case (both leading up to and including the trial) will be given in the report.   This will be followed by a list of the motivations behind each party for both of the cases.   Next, at least three law and/or ethical issues from each case will be discussed.   Finally, there will also be a timeline of significant dates in each case.
Food Lion operates more than 1150 supermarkets in 11 southern states.1   This case is built around ethical judgments made by journalists who decided to go undercover as employees at two of these locations.   The employees recorded about 45 hours of footage in the meat handling in several departments in the stores.   The footage was then used in an episode of Primetime.   The footage was incriminating, providing "[Confirmation for] many of the charges originally made against Food Lion."2   The case then went to trial.  
Food Lion based their claim on fraud, breach of the employees' duty of loyalty, and trespassing.   The jury found the defendants (ABC, two producers, and the two reporters) liable for fraud, the reporters liable for trespassing and breach of duty. 2   However, because Food Lion had decided to not sue for libel the judge did not allow them to ask for damages because of harm to the company's reputation.   The jury awarded Food Lion $5.5 million in punitive damages, the trial judge reduced this to only 315,000.   They also received $1400 for fraud (costs of training new employees) and $1 each for trespass and breach of duty. 2
ABC appealed the courts decision.   They argued that they were protected on the grounds of the first amendment.   Food Lion filed a cross appeal; they wanted damages for harm to their reputation even though they had not filed for libel.   The Court of Appeals found that the punitive damages were to not be awarded.   They...