Food Lion, Inc. v. Capital Cities/ABC, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
194 F.3d 505 (1999)
- Written by Casey Cohen, JD
Facts
Television producers working for Capital Cities/ABC, Inc. (ABC) (defendant) received a tip that Food Lion, Inc. (Food Lion) (plaintiff) grocery stores were mishandling meats. Lynne Dale and Susan Barnett (defendants) were ABC reporters. Dale and Barnett believed they could investigate the meat-mishandling claims by working inside a Food Lion location. Dale and Barnett fabricated resumes, references, and addresses to secure jobs in the deli and meat departments at Food Lions in South Carolina and North Carolina. While working at the Food Lions, Dale and Barnett secretly videotaped Food Lion employees in the meat department and collected 45 hours of footage. ABC aired the video footage, which showed Food Lion employees repackaging expired fish and grinding expired ground beef with fresh ground beef. Food Lion sued ABC and the reporters. Food Lion alleged that the reporters breached their duty of loyalty to Food Lion by investigating Food Lion while acting as Food Lion employees. At trial, the jury found Dale and Barnett liable for breach of the duty of loyalty. After trial, ABC, Dale and Barnett moved for judgment as a matter of law, and the motion was denied. ABC, Dale, and Barnett appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Michael, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 811,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
