NORTH SIOUX CITY, S.D. » Beef Products Inc. sued ABC News Inc. for defamation Thursday over its coverage of a meat product that critics dub "pink slime," claiming the network damaged the company by misleading consumers into believing it is unhealthy and unsafe.

The Dakota Dunes, S.D.-based meat processor is seeking $1.2 billion in damages for roughly 200 "false and misleading and defamatory" statements about the product officially known as lean, finely textured beef, said Dan Webb, BPI’s Chicago-based attorney.

The lawsuit filed in a South Dakota state court also names several individuals as defendants, including ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer and the Department of Agriculture microbiologist who coined the term "pink slime."

The company’s reporting "caused consumers to believe that our lean beef is not beef at all — that it’s an unhealthy pink slime, unsafe for public consumption, and that somehow it got hidden in the meat," Webb said before the company’s official announcement.

ABC News, owned by The Walt Disney Co., denied BPI’s claims.

"The lawsuit is without merit," Jeffrey W. Schnei­der, the news station’s senior vice president, said in a brief statement Thursday. "We will contest it vigorously."

The 257-page lawsuit names American Broadcasting Companies Inc., ABC News Inc., Sawyer and ABC correspondents Jim Avila and David Kerley as defendants. It also names Gerald Zirn­stein, the USDA microbiologist who termed the product "pink slime," Carl Custer, a former federal food scientist, and Kit Foshee, a former BPI quality assurance manager who was interviewed by ABC.

Richard McIntire, a spokes­man for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, declined to comment, and attempts to reach Foshee were unsuccessful.

The Food Integrity Campaign, a whistle-blower advocacy group that has worked with Foshee, said in a statement Thursday that Foshee was fired from BPI because he refused to participate in the company’s "misrepresentation of the product’s safety to the USDA and to consumers."

"Thanks to ABC News, Kit Foshee and other whistle-blowers shared their concerns about BPI," said Amanda Hitt, the group’s director and former counsel to Foshee after he was fired. "Doing so took enormous courage for which they should be honored, not attacked. We believe that this product is questionable."

When reached for comment, Zirn­stein said that he had not yet been served with the lawsuit.

"I’m just a scientist giving my opinion. I’m not going to deal with this nonsense," he said, referring questions to his attorney.

Although several news organizations used the term "pink slime," Webb said ABC was being sued for attacking the company "night after night." The "defendants engaged in a monthlong vicious, concerted disinformation campaign against BPI," the lawsuit claims, citing 11 TV and 14 online reports from March 7 to April 3.

Craig Letch, BPI’s director of food-quality assurance, said the company lost 80 percent of its business in 28 days. BPI has declined to discuss how much it lost in sales, but acknowledged it took a "substantial" hit. Some of the customers have returned, Letch said, but not enough to allow BPI to rehire former employees.

Webb said the reports had a "catastrophic" impact on the company, forcing it to close three of its four U.S. plants and lay off 700 workers.

ABC published a list of major grocery stores that stopped selling the product, pressuring others to follow suit by placing them on a "blacklist," he said.

BPI will have to prove the network intended to cause harm for the defamation lawsuit to succeed, said Patrick Garry, a media law expert at the University of South Dakota School of Law.

"The media — regardless of your opinion of them — don’t usually print something that they know to be false," Garry said. "It may be negligent, but usually there’s a malice requirement as well."