ACORN has filed suit in Maryland Court against James O’Keefe,
Hannah Giles and Breitbart.com, the Politico
reports:
In the complaint, ACORN
alleges that the filmmakers entered into the organization’s
offices in July with a “hidden camera and microphone” and taped
employees Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams. Both employees are
listed as plaintiffs on the complaint, filed in the Circuit
Court for Baltimore City.
ACORN is seeking $500,000 for each employee and $1 million for
the organization in damages.
The lawsuit recalls a case in the 1990s of Food Lion v. ABC
News, in which reporters for the show Primetime
Live applied for jobs at the grocery store chain and worked
with hidden cameras to reveal unsanitary practicies. As Wikipedia
recounts:
Food Lion was awarded USD$5.5 million by a jury in
1997. The award was later reduced by a judge to $316,000. The
verdict was then overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals Fourth
Circuit in Richmond, Virginia. According to the
court, even though ABC was wrong to do what they had done, Food
Lion was unable to show that they had been directly injured by
ABC's actions - essentially that it was the actions of Food
Lion that caused the damages, not the publication of those
actions.
