ABC News fails to keep ‘pink slime’ lawsuit in federal court

By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) – A South Dakota meat processor that sued ABC News over a series of reports that called its signature product “pink slime” has won the right to move its $1.2 billion defamation and product disparagement lawsuit back to the state court where it began. Wednesday’s decision to move the case by U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is a defeat for ABC News, a unit of Walt Disney Co, and returned the lawsuit by Beef Products Inc (BPI) and two affiliates back to the Union County Circuit Court in that state. …